A new case of massive falsification of official documents is shaking the island of Koh Phangan. At least 40 building permits, mainly intended for luxury villas for foreigners, have been revealed to be fakes, preventing owners from obtaining a house number and finalising their transactions.
A wave of indignation is sweeping through the Koh Samui archipelago and now Koh Phangan, in Surat Thani province, following the discovery of numerous forged building permits. The case came to light when Nattapong Miapian, a lawyer from the Koh Samui municipality, made a public appeal via Facebook for all villa owners to check their documents.
On 25 March 2026, the authorities confirmed the discovery of 40 new forged building permits this time in the Koh Phangan district. The case was reported by the owner of a design and construction company who filed a complaint on 8 January 2026 against an employee of the public works department of the Phet Phangan locality.
The permits in question concern at least nine luxury villas belonging to foreign clients. The buildings have been fully constructed, but the documents turned out to be fakes. Consequence: the owners cannot obtain a house number nor carry out any administrative procedures related to these constructions.
“I submitted the plans to obtain the permits back in June 2025. Confident thanks to our long experience and good relations with the relevant services, we started work immediately. Once the villas were finished, we discovered that these permits did not exist in the official system,” declared the aggrieved professional.
According to the police investigation, the incriminated employee, also recruited in 2022 as an administrative agent, would have supplied at least 40 fake permits, mainly for villas intended for foreigners. The signatures on the documents would have been applied by computer (probably via AI), a practice currently being examined by forensic experts.
This case comes alongside the Koh Samui municipality also filing a complaint against a similar official for similar offences on its territory.
The public and the media are called upon to exercise greater vigilance and report any irregularity in order to compel local authorities to enforce the law rigorously.