Yehtmae Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 Cops raid tourist hotels in big crackdown Budget hotels, gueshouses raided BANGKOK (dpa) - Thai police raided budget hotels, guest houses and other tourist haunts for the second straight day Monday, arresting "many foreigners" in a major crackdown on violators of immigration regulations. The target of Monday's immigration police swoop was the popular tourist resort city of Pattaya, 90 kilometres southeast of Bangkok. Police Major General Pongsapat Pongcharoen, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, said a total of 13 hotels, guest houses and condominiums were raided and "many foreigners" were arrested for failing to produce valid visa documents. He said he was unable to give exact figures on the number of foreigners arrested or their nationalities. "We're trying to improve the information we receive after tourists enter one of 54 entry points into Thailand," Pongsapat told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a telephone interview. "After (tourists) enter the country, we don't know where they go." He said the budget accommodations raided on Monday were all found to be in violation of a clause of the 1979 Immigration Act. --DPA 2004-01-13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 Hi, "After (tourists) enter the country, we don't know where they go." Uh, and why should they have to know? Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattaya127 Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 Definitely, they are sending signals that "expat/retired business as usual" with approximate legality may not be taken for granted anymore. Probably want to discourage the potential/future "non-quality" farangs, and have them re-consider Thailand as home of the free.... farangs at least. Pattaya is definitely a good target practice for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loner w/a boner Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 considering earlier sanuk closing times, increased visa renewal fees, and now this, etc...sounds like they are trying to slowly-but-surely weed out the poorer and more marginal foreigners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 >they are sending signals that "expat/retired business as usual" with approximate legality may not be taken for granted anymore. That could be it: my gf happened to be in the Pattaya police station yesterday when a large group of farangs bursted in. Initially she thought they were all there to report a theft as they were demanding their documents to be returned to them. It appears that about 40 residents from some "affordable" places were hurded into police station. She saw a TV crew filming. Local residents may have seen it on TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultras67 Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 I think it part of the overall immigration laws that you give the address you stay at on the TM card and that hotels / guesthouses with foreigners tell the police daily who they have, what type of visa they are on etc etc. Its probably this clause that they are looking at now. Thats what the KSR raid was, to check up more on the guesthouses rather than Pataya which was the individuals. Now why they want it? Probably they were scared of revolutions and stuff when it was drafted in the 70s, now it will play into the war against terror policies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Singhaman Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 It seems to me that now after the country is "drug free" the next step will be "farang free" . Nothing else than new rules and regulations lately...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawguy Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 The references above have been to farangs. Arabs / Middle Easterners are not farangs. I am assuming the group of rounded up farangs were Europeans, Americans, Aussies, etc. If they are looking for potential terrorists in Pattaya wouldn't they go straight to South Pattaya, to Marine Plaza Hotel and V.C. Hotel? Not a lot of English, American, German, French farang terrorits are there? The processes, mindset and goals of the Thai remain as opaque and confused as ever. Seems like any of hundreds of buraucrats can issue a decree to crack down on whatever is bugging them that day. GG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 13, 2004 Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 I see a connection. Last year after some high profile terrorists were found in Thailand, Thaksin in his take the bull by the horns approach had some strong words to say at the time as to monitoring what foreigners are doing and seems to be following up. I don't see an issue here, only the typical knee jerk overreaction of people yelling the sky is falling everytime something like this happens. Get people out who are in illegally seems a sensible step for any nation. Seems a very efficient way to find them by having each place one can stay report information. It's not like they have a checkpoint in front of NEP and the royal palace for instance checking everyones papers. The legal stayers are not being inconvenienced and criminals shown the door. And by the way, I saw in the BKK post among various nationalities they have rounded up some Kenyans were in the mix as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 14, 2004 Report Share Posted January 14, 2004 I saw another report about the cops picking up folks with expired visas. Think that's more what it is about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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