Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn again. Kind of almost getting to be a weekly sort of segment on our channel here because he seems to be in the Press quite a little bit. I almost kind of find myself enjoying following him at this point, seeing what he's doing. 

So the reason for the video, the reason I thought of making the video came from a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Cops look at pubs' ties to China groups. Quoting directly: "Police General Surachate said on Wednesday that investigators have reason to believe both the pub on Ratchada Road and the karaoke parlor on Sathon Road are run by the same people, as both venues cater to almost exclusively to Chinese tourists who are visiting Thailand. As some of these people entered Thailand on a Tourist Visa, they are technically operating a business without permission said Pol. Gen. Surachate."

This is one of those, over the years I have seen a lot of foreigners and not just to target the Chinese, I have seen a lot of foreigners really play it really close to the line with respect to businesses they have in Thailand. We all know the kind of scenario; the guy he is married to a Thai gal, she's maybe running a bar, bar and grill, he doesn't go behind the counter, he doesn't ostensibly work there, he's on a Tourist Visa or a Retirement Visa and maybe he doesn't really work there. I have seen scenarios where no, like the foreign guy just has nothing to do with the business, usually it is a spousal situation and the wife is running it. Then you see folks that like to play it a little closer to the line and it can really burn you, as noted in this article. If you are on a Tourist Visa in Thailand, you are explicitly not work authorized. If nothing else, if you get into issues with Thai Immigration police or just Thai National Police, you are going to be looking at a work authorization violation if nothing else. As we saw in what played out with the CNN reporters that came here, that ended up being the primary pretext by which they were deported is Work Permit violation at the end of the day. I think most of that came down to the fact that folks inside of the bureaucracy just didn't want to deal with much more paperwork probably when they can just easily cite: "hey Work Permit violation, you are a foreign national, on your way," and that was kind of the way they dealt with it.

So it remains to be seen exactly how all this will be dealt with but it's worth noting, again the trend is rising, it is worth noting. We have noted that they are starting to do a little bit of cracking down now; they are going after folks that are here illegally or foreign criminals; they have started to really start seriously scrutinizing people who are working in Thailand without authorization. So for all of these reasons, if you are looking to set up shop here in Thailand and do some business, it is really very much recommended that you obtain work authorization.