Guard against foreign crime
A large Chinese-language billboard at a busy junction in Bangkok, offering to help people get passports and citizenship from several countries, has raised questions about foreign criminal elements taking advantage of a more open Thailand.
The billboard in Huai Khwang district was removed yesterday by officials after an image of it went viral on social media over the past weekend.
The billboard pictured a man of Chinese appearance with a Chinese name holding a passport and advertising various fees in yuan for passport and citizenship applications from countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Vanuatu.
Prices for foreign passports and nationalities range from CNY 30,000 (150,000 baht) to CNY 150,000 (750,00 baht).
The Department of Provincial Administration reportedly found that the service provided might breach the law as it could involve forgery or an illegal call centre. If that were the case, police would need to arrest this business and its accomplices.
Simply removing the billboard is not enough.
This billboard is another reconfirmation that Bangkok has become the preferred destination for some foreign grifters.
As the Thai government has relaxed its visa rules to entice foreign money and tourists, the local population has learnt that some unscrupulous foreign visitors have arrived as tourists but ended up as residents opening businesses or owning property through the use of a Thai proxy.
In extreme cases, some even use Thai soil to conduct illegal activities or run syndicate crimes, such as Chaiyanat “Tuhao” Kornchayanant, an alleged leader of a Chinese crime syndicate who was arrested in 2022.
That case exposed how weak our government is when it involves immigration activities.
The Royal Thai Police publicly admitted in 2022 that members of Chinese triads under Tuhao use student visas issued by schools and foundations opened by Chinese people to stay in Thailand. The government and police vowed to crack down on these schools and foundations.
But after media attention petered out, the clampdown went nowhere.
The situation could only have worsened when the Srettha government fully opened the door with its relaxed visa programmes, a policy to let foreigners rent land for 99 years, and the latest scheme by the Immigration Bureau to cut passport checks at the airport to 45 seconds.
Without a good screening and tracing system, the problem will get worse.
Unscrupulous violators are not the only ones to blame. Those illegal activities — proxy business, forging nationality documents, or even running underground businesses — cannot and will not be possible without the help of corrupt Thai officials and their local accomplices.
The government cannot just look for tourists and their money. It must install dependable screening processes at immigration checkpoints to filter out unwanted visitors and an after-entry tracing system to ensure they obey the law and leave when their visa terms end.
However, such surveillance systems will mean nothing if the government and police do not clean up corruption in government and responsible agencies such as the Immigration Bureau.