One of the only visas that is relatively easy to get and maintain in Thailand is the retirement visa. All you have to do is prove that you have access to some comparatively low level of income and boom, you get a visa. You never get harassed about staying there too long, and you don't get quizzed at Immigration about why you are spending so much time in the country or why you are not fluent in Thai after "all these years" or something silly like that.
Pattaya, for reasons that defy all logic, is one of the areas that is heavily advertised for retirees and while I am certain that my own grandparents wouldn't be interested in living in what is basically a massive red light district, I guess there are some people, probably predominantly men, that are interested in that sort of thing.
But Pattaya never fails to impress as far as there being scams behind every corner is concerned as recently a multi-million dollar scam was uncovered that targets the elderly with falsified affiliations with banks that are offering large annual percentage rate returns for "investments."
Although you never really can tell when the Thai police are telling a story if it has any truth to it or not, this particular scam is said to be a "traditional Ponzi scheme" where payouts continue to happen in order to lure in additional investors until eventually enough capital is raised and the people involved simply go dark. Thailand would normally be a very good place to do something like this since there is so much corruption and normally, a fantastic ability to simply disappear especially if you are not a Thai national. In this case the head of the fake company called "King Power Gold" is a British National named only as "Bradley" in the documents.
It does seem as though the Thai police are actually learning a thing or two about how to present criminals in press releases as they have gone from putting their images, addresses, and even their passport ID page online, to blurring out their faces. It took a while, but it seems that they are learning a thing or two.
When this network was busted, it is estimated that Bradley and the reported 5 Thai women in his employ, had already scammed around 300 million THB out of the elderly, most of which were expat men. I can only guess that Bradley and his cohorts got a bit greedy, because if I was running anything that I wasn't sure it was going to work or not, I would have pulled the plug on it well before getting to $10 million.
Looking at Bradley's jacked biceps though, maybe he got addicted to the life here an access to steroids or something. One additional person involved in the scheme is a German, whose identity is known, but is apparently still on the run and in hiding somewhere. Good luck buddy! Because this person is a foreigner and Thailand wants to try to rebuild their image as "safe" it is all but guaranteed that this dude will either not get away, or the story in the news will go away.. one of the two.
These sorts of things happen all over the world, not just in Thailand... but when you do hear about something like this happening in Thailand it seems like it is always in Pattaya, a place that I have absolutely ZERO love for. I've only been there twice and I could find no redeeming qualities of the place. Ironically, the 2nd time I was there I went kind of against my will, but was accompanying a friend whose older sister was applying for a kind of dodgy retirement visa. The rules are pretty clear on retirement visas and the process is one of the easiest that exist. Why they would seek to skirt the process and potentially break the law (ok, nevermind, they are *definitely breaking the law) in the process is something I cannot understand.
The rule goes "there's no such thing as a free lunch" or "if it sounds to good to be true, that is because it isn't true" yet people seem to fall for this sort of crap on a regular basis.
Just remember that if this happens to you in Thailand the opportunity that you are going to get your funds back is much smaller than it is in the west. If any money is actually found, you can be all but assured that it will go straight into the pockets of the police - and it might actually be another one of those cases of the police actually already being very aware of this scam, but did nothing about it because the scammers were paying the police. Miss a few of those payments though, and the hammer will fall.
If you do come to Thailand, and I strongly suggest that you do at some point in your life, just do yourself a favor and stay out of Pattaya. It promises everything and delivers nothing. Other than having probably 20,000 prostitutes running amok, there really isn't anything going on down that way. Come up to Chiang Mai instead and enjoy a much better representation of "real Thailand" while still being accessible to people who do not speak Thai.