Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well we are discussing recent raid that occurred at what appears to be an unlicensed school that netted 10 illegal teachers. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Bangkok Police raid unlicensed international school. Quoting directly: "Authorities have raided an unlicensed International School in Prawet District of Bangkok, arresting 10 foreign teachers and staff found working without permits. Investigators from the Immigration Bureau joined Officers from the Prawet Police Station and officials from the Department of Employment to inspect the premises on Wednesday following reports of suspected irregularities." Quoting further: "The team found the school had been operating without a legally required license for more than a year, offering kindergarten and primary level classes to over 100 students. Investigators said they found 10 foreign nationals from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria who were working as teachers and staff without valid work permits."  

Yeah look, this is a pretty big case. I haven't seen something like this where it was just a full-blown, out in the open school that just had no licenses. But schools in Thailand are regulated strictly especially by the Ministry of Education, and in fact, teachers actually have a separate, they sort of have their own exclusive sort of type of Business Visa in Thailand and Business Visas for teaching have different criteria associated with them. We don't do a ton of those cases. I mean we have handled set up of schools over the years: smaller sort of seminar type schools, as well as actually bigger Ministry of Education certified schools, but it's fairly rare that we handle a lot of teachers Work Permits and visas in our office; we are oftentimes dealing with people who are basically SMEs, small business owners out here in Thailand. But long story short and the thing to take away from this video is to understand, again if you're not working for a licensed school and you don't have a Work Permit  and you're a foreign national in Thailand, you're opening yourself up to an amazing amount of criminal penalties as well as possible detainment at Thai Immigration before deportation, and then presumably blacklisting because it has to do with an underlying crime, as well as violations regarding Work Permits and Immigration status. 

So again, not a good idea to be working for a place that's unlicensed. Again, as they note in the article, and I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article for further detail, as they note in there, it is possible to verify with Ministry of Education whether or not a school has all their valid licensing and certification in order to operate as a school. And I'm here to tell you, they have high standards. It's pretty rigorous to maintain licensing as a school here in Thailand and to obtain Business Visa and Work Permits springing therefrom for foreign nationals working in those schools. It remains to be seen how this plays out. We will certainly be keeping folks updated on channel as the situation evolves.