Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing scrutiny of foreigners' work authorization here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Officials dispute media coverage of the Russian takeover of Phuket. Interesting article. As usual Khao Sod English provides some good insight in that article. I am going to quote some excerpts here directly as it pertains to this video, quoting directly: "Thai Authorities are investigating claims that Russians are taking over Thailand's local businesses after Al Jazeera reported that Russian nationals have entered Phuket to engage in various businesses including property purchases, tourism, ride-sharing apps, moonlighting and competing for jobs with Thai citizens." Quoting further: "Immigration Authorities said that from January 2023 to August 2023, a total of 2,569,052 tourists visited Phuket of which 487,504 were Russian tourists accounting for 19.34 percent. Regarding concerns about Russians working as ride-sharing drivers there were no such findings. In addition, all 15 travel companies that employed Russians have proper Work Permits. There were 20 cases related to labour violations by foreigners of which only 3 involved Russian nationals.”

Now the article there kind of leads towards, well obviously it is covering the issue of a Russian takeover in Phuket, but more to the point and as I have discussed in other videos about Immigration generally even in a US context, in a Thai context and I am often accused of fear-mongering in comments, but when things like this happen, you have to bear in mind that the spotlight may not just remain on one group or even one geographic area. As we have discussed, I discussed in a prior video a few weeks ago, there was a major raid regarding nominees that occurred down in Phuket and I said look there could be wider ramifications. I even sort of cautioned YouTubers and things that look just because something seems like it is working, if the underlying structure of whatever you are doing isn't legal you got real problems, it's just a matter of timing. This is kind of a similar type of video insofar as yeah, okay this pertained to Phuket; they were specifically looking at Russians coming in the country but again when they start looking at foreigners they look at pretty much anybody. It has a tendency to go more broad and as we have seen there have now been crackdowns in Chonburi and Chiang Mai regarding nominee shareholders on certain types of corporations. Well that started in Phuket so I don't think it is illogical to think that if they are starting to take major and initiatives to scrutinize work authorization of foreigners here in Thailand, I don't think it is unreasonable to presume that we could see broader scrutiny of more foreigners as time goes on.