Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well Police continue to crack down on foreigners doing business here in Thailand, specifically working in Thailand and now it seems to be bleeding over into heightened scrutiny of even business operations here in Thailand. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that is khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Police raid many nominee companies in Phuket that belong to Russians. Quoting directly: "Following an investigation, it was revealed that foreigners had illegally entered Thailand to work or conduct business by using nominees." Quoting further: "Officers from Provincial Police Region 8 directed by Police Lieutenant General Suraphong Thanomchit, entered and searched suspicious places alongside members of the Phuket Provincial Administration, Commerce Department, Tourist Police and Phuket Immigration Police." So let's think this through. Who is involved here, okay? Phuket provincial Administration - that is like state level authorities in an American context; Commerce Department - that's like the Federal Commerce Department in an American context; the Tourist Police which has no exact analog within an American context but I would just say local PD, local police; and then Phuket Immigration Police - so Immigration Police was on top of this as well. This is a very coordinated effort undertaken by multiple law enforcement agencies here in Thailand. This is not something to diminish the level of, I can't state it, I can't overestimate how much for lack of a better term, political capital, political resources, bureaucratic and administrative resources are expended in this. At a policy level, people are very serious about enforcing relevant Thai Immigration and labour provisions pertaining to foreigners working in Thailand. Quoting further: "On the same day, officers from the Crime Suppression Division raided eight locations in Phuket province suspected of being involved in crimes committed by foreigners. The raids were an extension of a case in which a man impersonating a regional electricity official scammed victims into installing an app that allowed him to control their phones. He then hacked into their accounts and transferred 500,000 Baht to the account of a Russian man. The Russians background check revealed that he had previously presented a Work Permit showing that he was employed by a company in Phuket. Officials then raided the company and found that it was not actually operating. It had been registered for the purpose of creating fake documents that foreigners could use to apply for a Work Permit and a Residence Permit in the Kingdom." 

So the thing to take away from this video is this is heightened scrutiny; they're really looking closely at people's business operations here. Look we incorporate a lot of businesses for clients here in Thailand; we assist a lot of folks in getting their Work Permits. We're pretty assiduous about screening the folks that we deal with here too and we want to ascertain to some degree - I don't need to know the ins and outs of any client's business but I need to make sure they are not coming out here to set up some app so they can rip off somebody over the internet or something. I mean we need to kind of be aware of our clients’ activities to that extent. Again I'm a big believer in privacy, personal and otherwise, business and otherwise, but that said, there are reasonable limits especially where you're dealing with foreign nationals in a foreign country. Again this is a pretty egregious case but I think it is very indicative of an overall change in paradigm which we have discussed at length insofar as Immigration is not considered the way it once was considered to be more or less and administrative function, there is much more of an enforcement sort of paradigm at play here when it comes to these kind of cases. Moreover, I think it is very pertinent to take a look at the fact that again the overall business operation is being scrutinized, not just the individual foreigner in question.