A Pakistani fabric store owner in Pattani province has been arrested for allegedly using the identity of a Thai national to obtain a Thai ID card, allowing him to live and run a business in Thailand for nearly 20 years.

Immigration officers searched the suspect’s business — one of the southern province’s biggest textile wholesalers and retailers — on Yarang Road in Pattani on Tuesday. 

Authorities said the business owner, identified only as Anwar, 54, was a Pakistani national who entered Thailand about 20 years ago. He reportedly obtained a Thai national ID card at the Phayuha Khiri district office in the northern province of Nakhon Sawan in 2007.

He is accused of paying a broker about 100,000 baht to arrange the process, which involved using the name of a local resident whose civil registration records had shown no activity.

After obtaining Thai status, Mr Anwar established a business specialising in imported fabric for fashion garments and Muslim clothing. The business eventually grew into one of Pattani’s largest fabric trading outlets.

Mr Anwar was married to a Pakistani woman and their four children all had Thai nationality, investigators found.

The Thai national whose identity had been used had died in Malaysia in March 2023.

Authorities are expanding the investigation.