Thai authorities have arrested seven people, including three civil servants, after uncovering the fraudulent registration of hundreds of foreign children at the Din Daeng Flats in Bangkok.

A total of 1,366 migrant children aged between five and 15, the majority of them Myanmar nationals, had been registered as residents of the low-income housing complex, entitling them to a “pink card” — a 13-digit ID that gives foreigners access to Thai public services.

The arrests were made on Tuesday after more than 100 police and officials from the Interior Ministry and other agencies raided seven locations at the Din Daeng flats.

The investigation began in April, when officials from the Department of Provincial Administration (DoPA) began to notice irregularities at the Din Daeng district office involving large numbers of people being registered at only a few addresses.

Authorities subsequently expanded the investigation to the Din Daeng Flats, a complex of 5,726 rooms built in the 1960s as Thailand’s first large-scale public housing project. There, they found at least 1,366 migrant children had been registered as residents, according to the National Identity Crime Enforcement unit of the DoPA. (Story continues below)

Pol Lt Gen Noppasil Poonsawat, police commissioner attached to the Royal Thai Police Office, announces the results of the crackdown operation in front of the Din Daeng police station in Bangkok. (Photo: Department of Provincial Administration)

Authorities suspect that corrupt officials bypassed computer warnings that were triggered when specific rooms at the Din Daeng Flats showed extreme overcrowding. A total of 44 rooms listed at least 16 children each, while just three rooms combined had 140 registered names.

Police investigators subsequently found that documents had been signed in advance and that house owners’ signatures had been forged before the documents were used to obtain identification cards for people without Thai nationality.

Arrest warrants were approved for seven people: three public officials, a broker, an intermediary, a house owner and a witness who certified the signatures.

All seven were apprehended on Tuesday. They were taken into custody for legal proceedings as authorities continued to investigate and identify other people involved.

Foreign nationals in Thailand who can provide proof of residence are eligible to apply for the “Pink Card No.7”, an identification document that grants access to certain rights and services available under Thai law.

Pink card holders can obtain access to basic education, healthcare and make certain financial transactions, such as opening bank accounts, without having to provide any other sort of identification, such as a passport.

Tuesday’s raid was the latest in a series of crackdowns on abuses of the registration system. Other examples include the “por thip” (fake father) scheme under which Thai men were paid to pose as the fathers of children born to foreign women, most of them Chinese, for registration purposes.