Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well the Thailand Elite Visa. I am just going to jump right in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Elite Card in the hot seat over scandal. Quoting directly: "Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn asked the Royal Thai Police to investigate the accusation against members of Thailand Elite Card that have been linked with Shady Chinese businesses, while tourism operators suggest connecting application procedures with International police to verify criminal records."

So as we have discussed in other videos, yeah there is a background check process associated with Thailand Elite and I am making another video on the specifics of that contemporaneously with this one. Long story short, there is there is a process so I don't know, we have assisted a number of people in getting Elite membership and thereby getting their visa and they are pretty thorough so I don't know how or why there is this allegation out there that maybe some folks, again these 'Shady Chinese businesses' I don't know exactly where this connection is at. I urge those as always to read the article that I just quoted as there is a lot more information in there. I went ahead and read it, it is interesting but it's not real clear on the specifics. Now that could be because they are building some sort of case or something and we may see later, possible litigation or something down the road, may see more details on this. 

But long story short, Immigration enforcement, especially since the end of the Emergency Decree here in Thailand which ended back in October of 2022 essentially with the commencement of high season this past year or this past high season I should say, yeah it has been back to status quo ante and quite honestly, they have a number of resources, it seems like it is kind of like pent up resources that they have at their disposal from a law enforcement perspective and it doesn't look like Immigration is messing around. There is kind of this misconception that if you get an Elite Visa, you are sort of, I don't know how to put it but you are sort of like immune from any further inspections or anything like this. Not true, it is a Visa like anything else and Thai Immigration has enforcement functions over Immigration Policy and Visa issuance so again, just because one has an Elite Visa doesn't mean it is necessarily sort of they are sort of a magic feather if you will against any possible future problems.