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Increasing Cooperation from Thai Police on Extradition

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing extradition here in the Kingdom. In the past few weeks I have seen a lot of articles from a lot of different sources that lead me to believe the Thai Police are cooperating maybe now more than ever, although I suspect they have always been cooperating, but I think that the technology is increased wherein they are able to actually ascertain individuals in the Kingdom that have extradition or have warrants and they are able to ascertain those folks and be able to hand them over. 

There are lot of articles here. I am going to just briefly quote from each one but what I really want the viewer to get a sense of is how many of these there are.  There are a number of folks that are being apprehended in the Kingdom now. I suspect a lot of this is coming from biometrics. Biometrics is making it increasingly easy, increasingly efficient to identify people and it really can't be faked. I mean fingerprints, retinal scans, facial recognition, none of this stuff lies. It is really sophisticated technology and it is allowing Immigration and Law enforcement here in the Kingdom to apprehend foreign criminals with more frequency. 

In a recent article from the Nation Thailand, that is nationthailand.com. The article is titled: Alleged Yakuza Gangster, Chinese Fugitive Arrested in Bangkok. So they are talking about two different people in this article. Quoting directly: "Immigration Police have arrested a Yakuza gangster and an alleged Chinese fugitive, the acting Chief Immigration Bureau announced.'  So the Yakuza member was wanted under an Akita Court arrest warrant for violent offenses. The Chinese real estate developer was arrested on fraud charges. Quoting directly, "Police later found that he was wanted on an arrest warrant by Chinese police so he was arrested for extradition." Moving forward, another article, again from the Nation, nationthailand.com. The article is titled: Russian Loan Fraud Suspect Arrested in Pattaya.  "Immigration Police have arrested a Russian woman wanted for allegedly cheating her debtor out of 6.5 million before fleeing to Thailand. She was apparently arrested at the request of the Russian Embassy. Quoting directly:  "The Russian Embassy told the Immigration Bureau that she was wanted under an arrest warrant issued by a Russian court” and it seems as though she was extradited based on that request or is in the process of being extradited. Another article comes from the Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com. The article is titled: Highly Dangerous Irish Offender Arrested by Thai Immigration Police in Bangkok on Soi 58. Quoting directly from what I feltwas the most relevant portion for this video, "British Embassy requested his arrest. His arrest in Bangkok this week came at the behest of the British Embassy. He is wanted in Belfast on charges committed between 2015 and 2018. Thailand's Immigration Police Supremo told journalists that he was a tricky character to arrest. He had changed his address in Bangkok and Northern Thailand several times to stay ahead of the police." 

So clearly it is becoming more necessary for foreign criminals to become more sophisticated to try and thwart the Thai Immigration Authority but I think that that era is over. I don't think it is going to be possible to pull a fast one on Thai Immigration much more in the future; again for the reasons previously cited, most notably biometrics. There is just simply no way around biometrics and biometric chips are also in place now in passports, so one carrying one's own passport, that data will add up but if you have a fake passport and the biometrics don't add up, that is going to be major cause for red flags and probably detention by Immigration until they find out and ascertain who the individual in question is. 

So the thing to take away from this video is Thai immigration and Thai Police clearly are taking foreign criminals seriously and I think they now have the tools to very effectively apprehend them, deport them or extradite them back to their country of origin or a country that has a warrant for their arrest.