Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "Big Joke" yet again, that is Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn, presently Deputy National Police Chief here in Thailand, formally the head of Thai Immigration. We have done some videos recently where we talked about the fact that he had a search warrant executed against him, I wouldn't say against him, executed on him, on his premises, on his house here in Bangkok I believe, as we discussed in a prior video. Then we also discussed the fact that apparently, not apparently now, there is a new National Police Chief or there has been designated a National Police Chief, Police General Torsak who we discussed in another video on this channel as well. People have kind of asked me, because we have done a lot of videos on “Big Joke" over the years and look we came by it sort of organically. We started talking about him when he became the Head of Thai Immigration, he made a lot of waves in Thai Immigration, he enforced a lot of things. TM30 came about during his tenure and so in point of fact, at least from legal news standpoint here in Thailand, I would say he is rather newsworthy. Meanwhile a lot of interesting things happen with this guy at the end of the day and his career has been a rather interesting thing to watch. 

I thought of making this video initially after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: 'Big Joke' says he paid reporters. A really interesting article there. The quotation we are going to take from that doesn't go to the thrust of that article, it gets into it. Apparently 'Big Joke' is independently wealthy via family wealth and there has been a lot of investigation into him, he's had to sort of explain himself. There is a lot of information in that article about all of that, most notably he goes on to say that he kind of helped out reporters over the years because he knew they didn't make very much money and they were reporting things and again go into that article itself to get that information out of there. I thought that was very interesting. Side note though, there's been no remuneration this way. The first time that I read that I kind of was thinking of the scene in Caddyshack where Bill Murray was, he's talking to somebody and Bill Murray just plays a fool, he is this foolish greens keeper in Caddyshack but he said: "one time I was caddying for the Dalai Lama and we get to the end of the course and I said hey Lama, holding out his money like, 'how about a little something for the effort?' The Dalai Lama told him something and then he said that meant that ‘I would receive enlightenment upon my deathbed, so now I have got that going for me.’ It's kind of a fun little interchange between Bill Murray and this other guy, obviously by a person in jest very foolishly but I got to thinking when I read this article about ‘Big Joke’, again the title of the article is 'Big Joke' says he paid reporters, and you can get into the article itself. So the first time I read through it, immediately what went through my head was "Hey 'Big Joke', how about a little something for the effort? We have been talking about you for a while.” That said, we have only ever done this from a sort of a news standpoint, never received any kind of remuneration associated with this. Honestly he came up on my radar because he became the Head of Immigration and we started talking about him then and then so much stuff happened, even sort of after he was the Immigration Head and then his return to the Police Force and what happened in between there and we talked about all of that, so more or less the reason I continue to keep an eye on him is one, he remains relevant. Presumably he is going to remain the Deputy National Police Chief so we will keep up on it as and when it is necessary. Now that said, I don't think he's immediately or his urgently pertinent right at this moment or moving forward into the immediate future, you may not hear so much about him but if there are other major things to talk about, I probably will make further videos on it. 

In any event, quoting directly from that article: "Police General Surachate said earlier that the top job can wait given that he is just 53 years old and has other things he wants to accomplish before moving on. He reiterated that position on Wednesday. Quite: "I am out. I don't want to get involved," he said. “Whoever wants to be whoever wants to be (police chief) can be. I still have seven to eight years in the service. If I do not resign, I might have the luck to vie for it then." Yeah look interesting, kind of ominous words, prophetic perhaps. We'll see. That said, one thing I can say having followed the career of 'Big Joke' for a while now is that don't sort of count him out so to speak, if in no other way don't count him out in terms of popping up in the public narrative. I would say that's a pretty fair statement to make. 

That said, I saw another article after reading that one, on my further point, I thought about making a separate video, decided not to do that. So in any event, this is from Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com again, the article is titled: I don't want revenge, insists 'Big Joke'. Quoting directly: "'Big Joke' through his attorney filed, "a complaint with Southern Bangkok's Criminal Court alleging contempt of Court in the police application for an arrest warrant for 80 [8] of his subordinates." He said investigators who sought the arrest warrant failed to identify their ranks." (and I think that they meant instead of "arrest warrant" I think they meant "search warrant".) Quoting further: "If investigators had done so, the Court would not have approved the arrest warrant," (they say that again but okay I think they meant "search warrant") "but would have issued a summons instead." So interesting. They get into some procedural stuff and apparently some lawsuits have been filed with regard to this whole situation and it is rather interesting. Yet again, say what you will about Surachate 'Big Joke' Hakparn but he is nothing if not interesting when it comes to following him for news purposes. So for that end it is rather interesting. It also provides insight into the Thai Legal System. Again I didn't know there was a procedural difference between serving a search warrant on someone who is a Police Officer versus filing a summons to have them answer and deal with such matters, so interesting. I don't know what the outcome of this will be; I don't know if this lawsuit apparently filed by 'Big Joke' has merit, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.