Transcript of the above video: 

This was a rather big story a couple of days ago. I was kind of a little bit more concentrate on other topics here recently but yeah there was an incident of a 6-year overstayer being arrested in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: New Zealander arrested after 6-year overstay in Pattaya. And the byline is: Visa offender said he avoided making friends to evade detection. 

The purpose of this video is not really, it's not sort of like a name and shame or something of this nature. But there is something about this I think is worth pointing out, which is it's kind of a sad story in that this person basically lived kind of almost a hermit like existence because they were for lack of a better term, evading Thai Immigration when honestly if they would have just gotten their visa situation sorted out from the get-go, they wouldn't have had to deal with that. More than anything, if you take nothing else away from this video, this is why Immigration law is to my mind pretty important for foreigners in any locality because why live under the spectre of having a problem like being deported and then it's almost kind of inevitable too. I can understand people get into a situation where they find themselves in some form of overstay or an imminent overstay and they don't know what to do. Honestly, the best advice is to contact a legal professional, somebody who deals with Thai Immigration frequently because there may be a solution and there may be one you are not seeing and you just don't know; it's better than, again getting this stuff sorted out from the get-go is better than living under the spectre of being arrested and deported. 

In any event, quoting directly, again Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, and I am redacting names here. I don't want to, again that's not our purpose here. "He was caught outside a convenience store near Jomtien Beach, said Pol Lt Col Weerachai Thinkhamut, superintendent of the Immigration Police for Chonburi province." Quoting further: "Upon arrest, he (again redacting the name) was found to have overstayed his visa for a total of 2,173 days. He admitted to police that he had managed to evade detection for nearly 6 years by rarely appearing in public and avoiding making local acquaintances." I mean that just sounds like a kind of an unhappy existence to my mind. I mean, again I am not making this video; this person has probably gone through a rather difficult experience going through this process - and I urge those who are watching this video, if you're interested in this from a topical standpoint, from the standpoint of understanding how Thai Immigration works, I urge you to read that article because this person will get deported and they are going to effectively be blacklisted, a minimum 10 years I would think, although definitely a minimum of five because they were apprehended in Thailand. But with a six year overstay, I would imagine they are going to end up with a 10-year ban minimum. 

That being said, again this is a good reason why you keep your Immigration status in good order so you don't have to worry about these things and quite honestly, so you don't have to live for lack of a better term, almost a life of quiet desperation just evading Thai Immigration Police.