Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn, specifically Police General Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that is khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Police to eliminate all gangs in Pattaya after German Murder. Quoting directly: "Following the case of Hans Peter Ralter Mack, a German businessman who was kidnapped, murdered and dismembered in Nong Prue District, Chonburi Province, Police General Surachate Hakparn," (sometimes referred to by his nickname "Big Joke"), quoting further: "Deputy Commissioner of Police said on July 14th that he directed the police to wipe out foreign criminal gangs in Pattaya." Quoting further and quoting directly: "Thai Officers will not allow these people to come to Pattaya as a shelter or to conduct crimes. As a result, Immigration Officers must investigate and eliminate all gangs," (I'll get to that in a moment), quoting further: "Police General Surachate stated that after eliminating criminal organizations in Pattaya, their members would leave the country. These organizations will go wherever Government Officials are weak. As a result, the Immigration service must take its responsibility seriously." 

I have discussed this at length in other videos in the past. This started I would say somewhere around about 2015 maybe '14 when they first brought in the so-called Blacklist which we have had an Immigration Blacklist for some time prior to that but it tended to only pertain to those who had committed crimes in Thailand. As a result of changes that actually were in the works before the coup back in 2014, even before that had happened, and I remember talking at the time or I remember it was prior to me doing videos actually, I remember talking about it on blogs and out on social media in print, that the paradigm was changing and one of the best pieces of evidence at that time was they came out with an expanded Blacklist. If you overstayed in Thailand by 90 days or more, you went on to a Blacklist. It basically ended the perpetual overstay problem that Thailand had because there were a number of people as we saw in the years after that, there were a number of people that had lived in Thailand for thousands upon thousands of days without being in lawful status and they ended up being Blacklisted and unable to come back to Thailand; the Paradigm Shift started there. So in the past, Thai Immigration especially I think viewed itself primarily as an administrative function primarily. As time has gone on, especially lo these last roughly 10 years or so, we have really seen in earnest that it has moved much more to a law enforcement perspective as outlined in this article in Khao Sod English, the quotes directly from Surachate Hakparn himself, Big Joke so to speak himself on these issues, I think this is pretty clear evidence in my mind that yeah this paradigm has shifted. This is viewed as a law enforcement function or maybe I could call it an ancillary law enforcement function and they are taking it quite seriously. 

So the thing to take away from this video is yeah if you are looking to come to Thailand, first off do not be put off. I didn't mean to like scare people or whatever in prior videos about the Retirement Visa. I personally don't think there's going to be a lot of major changes in terms of the Retirement Visa, in terms of availability or straightforwardness and being able to obtain it. If anything I think there may be some minor changes to financial requirements down the road. That being said, going any further into that would be something of speculation and I have another video I am making contemporaneously with this one where I go into that analysis in some detail. But the thing to take away from this video, If you are looking to come to Thailand and operate legitimately, I don't think you are going to have any worries that are going to arise as a result of that but understand, understand very much so that yeah more and more Thai Immigration and the Labour Department are taking their jobs much more as a law enforcement function rather than an administrative one.