Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thailand is not a "safe haven" for criminals. I got to thinking of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com. I urge those who are watching this video, Thai Examiner always does very in-depth articles so I will oftentimes quote something, even if it is a decent amount of content in a general sense relative to the overall size of the article, it will often times be just a tiny little snippet comparatively. For those who are looking for further insight, you might want to go check that out. 

Quoting directly from the article titled: Police worn foreign fugitives Thailand is no longer a safe haven after Pattaya arrest of UK paedophile. Quoting directly: "A top Police Officer, on Monday, warned international criminals that Thailand can no longer be regarded as a refuge for fugitives after the arrest on May 29th of convicted paedophile pornographer, from Scotland, in the Bang Lamung area of Pattaya in a joint operation between UK Police forces and the Royal Thai police. However, this person, (I am redacting names. However you want to look at it, this person clearly has major problems but I don't really love using names) however this person had managed to live in Thailand illegally without a Visa for over 8 years from May 2014 up to his arrest at the end of the month." 

Yeah and this looks, this is kind of a rarity I suspect because it looks like this person came in right before they started ratcheting up on Immigration enforcement measures here in Thailand and just kind of got in, and managed to slip in and stay in. Clearly they are in Visa violation; clearly they need to go back to the UK because Thailand does not need to be a refuge for folks like that. 

The thing to take away from this video is, I thought was a little strange and then I got to reading into it because there has been an Immigration component to these moves. As we discussed in other videos there is the Advanced Passenger Processing System (APPS) Thailand now uses as well as PBIX is kind of, it pulls together all the information about people coming and going from Thailand and it is some really sophisticated stuff. They are really able to see who is doing what; who is coming from where; what have they been doing; do they have a record? I was really surprised when I read the headline to this article. When I dug in deeper I realized oh this person had kind of figured out a way to get in before a lot of this stuff came online and now they are hiding out. But the thing to take away from this video is yeah Thai Police, the Thai Law enforcement mechanism here, the Thai Law enforcement apparatus be it Immigration, Royal Thai police, DSI whoever you want to look at, they are serious about keeping foreign criminals out of Thailand and they will find them in Thailand if and when they can and you will be detained and you will be deported. So something to bear in mind with respect to Thailand travel from here on out, really.