Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well “Big Joke” again, and it seems he's come back to the forefront of the news here recently. People have asked me why I kind of keep track of it. Well he started off in Immigration and then really it was just interesting stories that came up about it but almost every one of these stories that comes up it almost always with a few exceptions, but almost always has an Immigration angle to it as does this one, the reason for this video today. 

The article is from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, it is titled: Five people, including senior cop, charged for swindling detained Brit. Quoting directly: "Five people have been charged in connection with swindling 6 million Baht out of a British man in exchange for freeing him from detention, according to Police. He was also using his alleged connection with Pol. Lt. General Surachate Hakparn, the assistant National Police Chief. The name of Britain was withheld by police." Quoting further: "Pol. Lt. General Surachate told reporters on Tuesday that a woman named, I won't even go through names here, said a bail request for the Briton, who was her friend and whose name was withheld by the Police, had been rejected. Interpol had issued a Red Notice for him, and he was detained by the Immigration Bureau in Bangkok. She then sought help from another person after the bail request was turned down. This person told her that he was acquainted with a man by another name who could get in touch with a Police Colonel who was a former classmate of Police Lieutenant General Surachate in the Royal Police Cadet Academy. Police Lieutenant General Surachate said investigators confirmed that the Police Colonel had indeed spoken to the Duty Officer on June 29th. The Assistant National Police Chief added that during the phone conversation, the Police Colonel mentioned his name to the Officer in an apparent bid to gain detention access."

So apparently, some background here and I urge folks who are watching this video go check out that article in the Bangkok Post, again bangkokpost.com, but basically it seems there was somebody they were arrested, they were detained; there was an Interpol Red Notice put out on them but another person, some acquaintance of this person who was detained, was trying to get them out of jail on bail which I can tell you, that is a difficult thing. I mean expediting and deportation, what I am talking about there is getting somebody deported more quickly so they can spend less time in the Detention Center, that oftentimes may be possible. Bail while in Immigration detention, it is not unheard of but it is a pretty rare thing and it is pretty darned difficult. Meanwhile, it seems that this thing was some kind of scam and Big Joke who mentions it, is quoted in the article further as saying these people were charged criminally or they will be, were basically it was one of these deals where it is like I know somebody who knows somebody and then Big Joke's name came up and probably because he is known as having been the Head of the Immigration Police before and now he is basically the Assistant National Police Chief, I guess it just kind of came up. I have to say I kind of for lack of a better term, I kind of feel bad for “Big Joke” that his name keeps coming up in these rather high profile weird cases which really it doesn't look to me like he had done anything wrong, somebody just used his name to try and coax somebody else and he seemed to be operating quite by the book and on top of it, it wasn't even really his call because there was this Interpol Red Notice and that meant there was not going to be any bail associated with this detention.

So we have kind of followed sort of his situation as its kind of the ups and downs as things have moved on with him at least as far as it goes in the press. In this particular situation as well as many others that have come up in the past, it just kind of seems like he is sort of involved in something where there's kind of a profile to it, there is heavy media coverage. It doesn’t look to me like he did anything wrong and if anything the case is now moving toward prosecution because it looked like the folks here were not really trying to secure somebody's release, it was more kind of a scam kind of thing. So interesting. Again, I urge folks who are watching this video to go check out that article in detail. We'll keep you updated on this channel as situations like this evolve.