Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are talking about Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn. I've been following this guy for, man, I definitely remember following him in '18, I think we were talking about him even in '17, maybe even going back to '16, so we're going on the better part of a decade that I've kind of followed him. He came into the Immigration Police and really shook things up; those in retiree status for a long time here will likely remember him. He was the one that really started cracking down on bank balances and timing of bank balances and how long they were maintained and things. So folks in the expat world are sort of aware of him. Meanwhile, it seems - he has had a colourful career - he was actually sort of seemingly dismissed from the police force, brought back to. He made it all the way up to Deputy National Police Chief. It seemed like he was being tapped to be the National Police Chief; that did not end up happening. Then he sort of remained and then there was sort of a scandal, and he ended up out of the Police Force. There was sort of, I covered it at the time, there was a process by which he was dismissed again from the Police Force, and it seems as though he is kind of becoming increasingly political as time has gone on and has brought out evidence; I have talked about it. Look, the implications of all of this are pretty profound if you look at it from certain angles. Meanwhile, the veracity is difficult to determine, and at the end of the day would need to be determined under some sort of adjudication - either legal or internally within the police and things depending on the accusations whatever - but this is pretty serious stuff. And as I have somewhat warned, especially sort of the YouTube Community that's just out here if you will, or maybe I shouldn't call it the YouTube Community, the sort of social media community that comes along and talks about things about Thailand, this is something to stay away from. Not everybody has the depth of knowledge to know where - it's sort of a "you don't know what you don't know" type of thing. So I'm continuing to cover this because it is news that pertains to law policy, law enforcement, and Big Joke, somebody we have been following for years, so I'm covering it, but if you notice, I'm rather circumspect in my discussion of this because again there's a lot floating around out there that is at best accusation without any adjudicated merit, so bear that in mind. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Big-name Fraud wave shocks. Quoting directly: "The intensified campaign to expose wrongdoing within the Police Force, led by former deputy National Police Chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn and Atchariya Ruangratanapong, President of the Crime Victims Assistance Club, has become a major point of public interest. Their revelations carry weight as Pol Gen Surachate General is considered an insider who has in-depth information that outsiders would rarely be able to uncover. Whether these efforts will genuinely resolve long-standing issues involving protection rackets, illegal gambling, under underground casinos and foreign criminal networks - in which Police of various ranks are alleged to be involved - or whether this is merely a campaign to generate publicity, attack rivals or exact revenge before eventually fading away, as has happened in the past, remains to be seen." Well, look, Big Joke faded away a couple of times in the past and then he came back so, to sort of just write it off as a he's just making something, again I am not speaking to the veracity of the claims, but I'm just talking about the phenomenon that is Big Joke if you will. "Fade away" is not exactly in his vocabulary it seems. 

That said, quoting further: "Mana Nimitmongkol, President of the Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand, said Thailand has failed to suppress online scammers, illegal gambling, grey market conglomerates, and money laundering because "big name" figures in politics and the civil service form the apex of a pyramid profiting from bribes within these criminal networks." That may be going on. I think it is important to realize that look, all countries have their own issues with corruption, systemic or otherwise. I am not going to be an apologist for overt corruption but, I'm always a little bit taken aback I guess, when especially outsiders coming to Thailand say, "oh Thailand is corrupt, blah, blah, blah, blah," and I'll say well let's look back at our own system. There are issues in our own systems from back home, which in many cases are actually profoundly more corrupt in terms of at least the money involved sometimes, than stuff you see in Thailand. Now that being said, if real corruption exists, if crimes have taken place, there needs to be due process and penalties need to be handed down, if it's deemed appropriate. That said, quoting further: "As a result, enforcement efforts only managed to catch minor offenders, creating the appearance of action without addressing the systemic problem. Quote: "The most shocking news is that Ministers, MPs, former Police Chiefs, and over 200 other officers are involved in online gambling, drug trafficking, underground businesses, and corruption. The revelation has been reinforced by the exposés of Pol Gen Surachate," he said."

Well, I thought about what sort of thumbnail I'll use for this; I'm going to go ahead and use it. It's the Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart scene from the movie Casablanca where: "I'm shocked, shocked illegal gambling is going on out here." Because on one level okay, there may be corruption. I don't know if there is or not. It looks like these accusations are substantial; they will probably be adjudicated; there may be some merit to some of them, no merit any of them, or merit to all of them. Again, an adjudication will tell. That being said, I'm really always kind of fascinated the way this stuff gets covered in terms of sensationalism because it's like "oh, there could be this network of people that allow online gambling, or illegal gambling, or whatever." Yeah, it's like Casablanca, "I'm shocked, shocked that gambling is going on on these premises." Yeah, we're kind of aware. Again, law enforcement needs to do what law enforcement needs to do. They need to do their jobs. We shouldn't have a corrupt system but the pearl clutching gets to be a little much is all I'm saying. That said, quoting further: "Recent high-profile cases include the Tu Hao and Linjing Club incidents, Yu Xinxi's illegal association arranging visas for as many as 7,000 Chinese Nationals to enter Thailand, and the involvement of Inspector Sua in a major online gambling Network," he said." Quote: "Consider how they were able to carry out such large-scale operations without networks or high-ranking supporters. Our laws are outdated and struggle to keep up with these schemes." Well that's where I always, and that's why I continue to quote this. That's where my hackles always go up. Oh our laws are outdated and struggle to keep up with these, you know, just like the banking thing: scammers and mule accounts, therefore collective punishment, less liberty for you. We have got to tighten up the laws because of these scammers. How about you just enforce the laws that are on the books? That actually is more the issue here, not changing the laws themselves. You can't have it both ways. This is either about corruption, and therefore the laws that we have are not being enforced, or you are trying to push an agenda to change Thailand from the free country that we're in, to something else on the pretext that we have got to guard against international scam networks or whatever the boogeyman of the week is. Again, my hackles go up when I hear that stuff. Quoting further, or quoting again: "Our laws are outdated and struggle to keep up with these schemes -- whether in narcotics, gambling, fraud, or cyber-crime." Well I don't know about, again is the point of this that there's corruption and therefore the laws aren’t being enforced, or is an agenda being pushed here? That said, quoting further: "Meanwhile, scammer gangs are defrauding Thai citizens of more than 100 billion baht annually, making it extremely difficult to trace the ringleaders and the state officials who protect these criminal enterprises." That didn't make a lot of sense to me. So they're "taking in 100 billion baht annually, making it extremely difficult to trace the ringleaders"; I thought that's what this digitization was supposed to do. What's that scene in the movie The Death of Stalin, where they go to Beria and his NKVD, to find this little girl that was first a photo was taken with Stalin in her youth - I'll try to find the clip of that and put it in the description below - but basically they come back and say "well we can't find her" and Khruschev says, “I thought the whole point of the NKVD was so that we can find anybody.” It's like this Digital Banking, and all of this nonsense. We have all got to run out and have our photo IDs taken and biometric track and trace all of this stuff, and then when you do need to actually go out and find these scammers, "oh, we need more lack of liberty for you to be able to find these scammers that are victimizing you." It feels pretty disingenuous. 

That being said, this is a lot of interesting developments and again it looks like it's now moving over into the political sphere, as does Big Joke himself look like he's sort of laterally moving into politics. Again, whether or not he is, or whether or not this has any bearing on upcoming elections here in Thailand remains to be seen, but we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.