Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing fraudulent documentation associated with Thai Immigration. In a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Russians, Chinese Arrested in Pattaya, Bangkok. I am going to quote some excerpts here. There is a lot in this article, in the news surrounding this and all the specific information is rather interesting. For purposes of this video we are talking about the possible ramifications with respect to how this can impact just dealing with general Immigration. We have seen this happen before. Crackdowns involving sham marriages had ripple effects across the Immigration system. Things that Big Joke did back in his tenure as the head of Immigration where they would crack down on certain fraud that was going on, it had widespread ramifications so presuming something only pertains to one's particular office or even one subset of foreigners, well frankly it can be risky. It is not a good idea to do it. When you when you read about these things, it is a good idea to just put it in the back of your mind and if everything about your documentation is fine then don't worry about it, but something to think about. 

Quoting directly, bangkokpost.com, Russians, Chinese Arrested in Pattaya, Bangkok. Quoting directly: "Police have arrested two Russians on charges of providing fraudulent information to support applications for Permanent Residence in Thailand." Quoting further: "He said investigators had learned two suspects operated a website which provided fraudulent financial statements." Quoting further: "Russian clients would take the financial statements to the Russian Embassy to have them certified. The statements would then be used to support an application to the Immigration Bureau for a Permanent Residence visa. Arresting police also seized an amount of Thai money, copies of passports and fake financial statements." So, again and you can read this stuff yourself on bangkokpost.com. Thaivisa.com also did an article similar to this one. It gets a little more in-depth. Theirs is called Visa extension Fraudsters: Further Details Emerge as Thai Police go after Russian Retirees who used Service. I am not going to get into the Thai Visa one in this video specifically because the purpose of this video is simply to talk about the possible ramifications of this. 

We, in our experience, usually see after a big crackdown like this there is a broader tightening of scrutiny if you will with respect to documentation associated with visas generally especially I suspect in this case, financial information; bank account documentation, they are going to be looking more closely at it. Don't presume that it is only going to apply to Russians. In my opinion, we have seen situations where there were subsets, foreign nationals tend to self-stratify, often times it is by language, into their linguistic groups and they tend to run together and they can be very mutually exclusive to one another. They don't really see what these other groups are doing and they oftentimes presume what applies to one group of foreign nationals won't really affect another one. Well that has not been our experience. Yeah, there may be more scrutiny on folks who come from a certain region in the aftermath of this or area or country but that is not to presume it won't have wider ramifications on foreign nationals as a whole. 

So, something to think about, bear it in mind. If nothing else have it at the back your mind and just be sure that when you are dealing with your documentation associated with finances in Thailand everything is in order.