Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, it appears that "Big Joke" seems to have been involved with a recent case here in Thailand, something of a high-profile case. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Dissident Russian rock band deported to Israel. Quoting directly: "Members of a Russian Rock Band opposed to the Ukraine war have left Thailand for Israel a week after the authorities threatened to deport them back to Moscow for working at the resort island of Phuket without a Permit, the band and the Royal Thai Police said on Thursday." Quoting further: "Several band members, however, hold both Russian and Israeli citizenship and the group had been based in Israel since the 1990s. Deputy National Police Chief, Police General Surachate Hakparn (that is "Big Joke"). Quoting further: "said the band requested to be deported to Israel. The Band were fined for working without a Permit he added."

So as we have discussed in other videos, yeah if you work in Thailand without a Work Permit, it is a deportable offense. Now I understand that there are sort of larger, maybe you can say geopolitical ramifications to this band or in the background there are other concerns going on. I don't know if that necessarily was even registered on the radar of Thai Law Enforcement because at the end of the day, they were deported on a Work Permit violation; as we have discussed in other videos, Work Permit violations can lead to deportation. The other thing to keep in mind is that there are certain restricted occupations here in Thailand and those who are engaging in certain types of entertainment activities need to be well aware of those restricted occupations when they obtain their work authorization so as not to fall in violation with relevant employment law here in Thailand. 

The thing to take away from this video is it appears that the folks that were in this Band did not have any Work Permit whatsoever, that's at least from the research that I have done, and correct me if that's incorrect, correct me in the comments, but it does appear that they had no Work Permit at all and as a result, they were deported in this case to Israel. So that's basically what happened and from a Work Permit standpoint, again as we have discussed in other videos, working without a Work Permit can have serious consequences here in the Kingdom of Thailand.