Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing foreigners being targeted for being employed in Thailand, specifically illegally working 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: Officials dispute media coverage of the Russian takeover of Phuket. Quoting directly: "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." Quoting further: "The Police Department has also provided statistics on the criminal activities of foreign nationals from January 2023 to August 2023, which include 635 cases involving foreign nationals, of which 78 were Russian nationals representing 12.28 percent. These cases mainly involved work-related offenses (6 cases)".

Yeah, as noted in prior videos, it does appear that Thai Immigration is increasingly concerned with folks working illegally in Thailand. For those who are unaware, it is required that foreign nationals receive some sort of work authorization in Thailand before engaging in any kind of occupation here in the Kingdom. Now there are many out there that will say "well what's the definition of work? what if I volunteer?” I have done a number of videos on that in the past. The definition of work is very, very broad. I have kind of jokingly argued, "hey breathing could be considered work", but to an extent I mean the broad nature of the definition of work in Thailand, yeah I mean virtually anything could be considered work. 

The thing to take away from this video and the thing to understand is if you are coming to Thailand and if you are looking to work you do need to obtain work authorization because failure to do so could result in for example this situation that we are discussing here where someone, they have been caught working illegally, and presumably those folks have been deported, possibly even blacklisted.

So again, if you are looking to work in Thailand, get your ducks in a row, get your work authorization sorted out before undertaking any work because failure to do so could result in some very negative ramifications here in the Kingdom of Thailand.