Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the National Police Chief whether or not, and I believe from this article it looks like the National Police Chief will likely be targeting if you will or focusing on, issues surrounding what may be illegal trafficking in persons to Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Chinese visa scheme linked to Chinese beggars on Bangkok streets as PM accepts its failures. A lot of information in there. As per usual, the Thai Examiner really does do kind of a deep dive and a lot of different points and facets to that article. We are going to kind of focus on one here. Quoting directly: "Range of security issues confront PM before meeting National Police Chief General Torsak Sukvimol including Chinese beggars seen on Bangkok's streets.” Quoting further: “Deformed Chinese women dressed in Thai girls' school uniforms have been seen begging on the streets at various and intersections." Quoting further: "Mr. Sarawut Mulpho, the Welfare Protection and Life Quality Director at the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, told reporters that without a doubt, this activity has links to organized criminal gangs in Thailand. However, he suggested that foreign beggars were using the Government's visa-free schemes to promote tourism to enter the Kingdom and exploit the goodwill of the Thai people to make money on the streets. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, said the Government would react decisively to the situation. He was speaking before he met with National Police Chief General Torsak." 

So again, yeah this is a pretty major issue. It's kind of one of those unintended consequences things. Look let's be clear, and credit where credit is due, I think the Government made a good decision in proposing and implementing Visa-free entry to Thailand especially going into this high season. I think it's a good idea to try to encourage as much tourism as we can possibly encourage. That said, I think we are fighting against a lot of headwinds here insofar as look the price to fly to Thailand is far higher than it has been in the past, I mean that's owing to a number of different factors. Generally speaking, I think money is on the minds of many would be tourists around the world, especially coming off of this whole pandemic thing where we saw all of our economy shut down and then now we are sort of trying to recover from that and all that that entails. So yeah I can see that this would be a time of obstacles in terms of Tourism. That said, I think the government made a good call in saying look we want to encourage as many tourists as we can so we are going to put forward some of these Visa free schemes. It is unfortunate that we are seeing this transpire though. As I discussed in another video made contemporaneously with this one, I don't know what it is about people wanting to come to Thailand and beg here but this isn't the first time. We have seen this in the context of Western so-called “begpackers” who come to Thailand. We talked about that, I want to say some probably back in '17, '18, '19, is the last time I can remember thinking about that. It was kind of a pre-Covid phenomenon but yeah young Western backpackers would come to Thailand and then sit around on the streets begging for money or selling trinkets or whatever. Well guess what? That is an occupation for Thais only. As we have discussed in other videos, there actually is a licensing scheme for begging here in Thailand and I still again I don't understand why everybody in the world wants to come to Thailand to beg. I guess it says something kind and nice about Thailand, the fact that folks here are compassionate and want to help people but to take advantage of that by foreigners, I just feel it's really, really wrong and it is clear to me that policy makers are looking, seem to think the same way. Hopefully we will see some kind of resolution to this, possibly in a law enforcement capacity as the days and weeks roll on and we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as that situation evolves.