Transcript of the above video: 

There has been some speculation out there - I've seen a fair bit of a negative feedback - especially from the Indian community regarding changes to Thai Immigration laws, especially recently regarding the shift from 60-day Visa exemption, visa exemption for Indian nationals, back to a reversion of the old visa-on-arrival scheme wherein those folks were not necessarily permitted Visa-free, now they have to get a Visa again upon arrival, and they can only get 15 days in country. I've seen some negative sort of reactions on the internet to that. I've also seen various folks saying that this nationality is being targeted by Thai Immigration, or that nationality is being targeted by Immigration. In this video I think we are going to show that in actuality, I don't think Thai Immigration is particularly targeting a specific group of individuals, they are just basically looking at who they believe is breaking Immigration Law and targeting them. That said, let's jump into this. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Immigration sweep nets North trio. Quoting directly: "Immigration Police have arrested three foreign nationals in Mae Hong Son's Pai district as part of a crackdown on illegal business operations, nominee shareholding arrangements and labour law violations. The arrests followed investigations into suspected illegal business activities involving foreign nationals. An Israeli man identified as Goren was arrested under a warrant issued by the Mae Hong Son Provincial Court. He is accused of providing false information to officials and violating the Foreign Business Act by using Thai nominees to operate a studio business in the district. An American man identified as Frank was arrested on charges of working without a valid permit and failing to report the presence of a foreign national at a residence within the period required by law. The third suspect, a Spanish woman, identified as Natalia, was nabbed for working without a Work Permit." 

So a couple of things. The thrust of this video. One, Thai immigration is cracking down; there's no doubt about that. They are looking for folks who are working illegally. They are also heavily scrutinizing corporate structures now in order to ascertain whether or not foreign nationals are utilizing what are deemed to be nominees in order to conduct business in Thailand in ways that are in violation of the Foreign Business Act. I've gone over that type of stuff in many other videos, but the purpose and thrust of this video is to point out that no, I don't think it's fair to say that any one nationality is currently being targeted. 

Now depending on the province and depending on the makeup of the foreign community in that province, it may seem that there is a disproportionate amount of scrutiny if you will, or attention being paid in one particular group, and that may be because in that particular province it just so happens that they have got a group of folks of a certain nationality that are flouting Thai Law. But again, I think if you go from province to province, in one province it may be this nationality that is seemingly being sort of targeted, whereas in another province, it may be a totally different nationality. Again, I think it depends on the demography of the underlying place and the underlying activity that is being scrutinized. 

That being said and again, the thing to take away from this video, if you are looking to come to Thailand to work, it is very, very important that you scrupulously get yourself in line and in compliance with Thailand's labour laws. The other thing to bear in mind is, the attitude and it has been pervasive for years here, and there's some truth to the quote from the movie The Matrix; in the Matrix, "some rules can be bent, others can be broken". Now I'm not saying you can break laws, but what I am saying is yes, there have been customary ways of doing things in the past where people basically "got away with things". The fact is AI has come online. They have the ability now to digitally basically scrutinize corporate structures, property holding structures, activities; it's getting very totalitarian. There are all types of reports - we've done the reports on this channel - of folks who have been captured by cameras and then identified as being into violation of Immigration Law. Again, in the totality of the circumstances, what we're seeing here is a much more sophisticated law enforcement apparatus in Thailand than we have seen in the past and it's resulting in a wide range of arrests and it's resulting in folks that at one time could “get away” with something, not being able to get away with it anymore. We're specially seeing this in the context of this push against “so-called” nominees. That's something  to really, really keep in mind, and we're very much seeing it in the context of work authorization as well as elicit landownership. So those are things to bear in mind and the thing to take away from this video more than anything is NO, I do not think one particular group of foreigners in Thailand is being targeted over another. I think the demography and the makeup of the types of arrests are going to depend on the conditions on the ground in the particular location one is focusing on here in the Kingdom of Thailand.