Thai Immigration police target visitors making multiple visa runs
Immigration police are focusing on blocking foreigners, especially scammers, who do visa runs to extend their stay in Thailand by abusing the government’s visa-free entry scheme.
Pol Maj Gen Choengron Rimpadee, deputy chief of the Immigration Bureau, said on Tuesday that immigration police would carefully question foreigners making a third consecutive visit with repeated back-to-back visa-free requests to stay in the country for up to 90 days each time.
Officers would look into those who had stayed at least 45 days during their previous stays.
“These foreigners do not visit Thailand for tourism. Many of them work or operate business with Thai nominees as their front. They use the visa-free scheme to avoid official visa requests before travelling, and their data is not included in Thailand’s systems controlling occupations and taxation,” the deputy commissioner said.
Some of these visitors had made as many as seven visa runs in a row and their accumulated stay exceeded 200 days, he said.
Immigration police would deny such visitors repeated entry. This would enable them to prevent scammers who fled suppression in neighbouring countries relocating their illicit businesses to Thailand, he said.
Pol Maj Gen Choengron said suppression efforts had affected parties that cash-in on visa run services. They had started to disseminate false information, claiming that immigration had targeted visitors from countries including China.
The deputy immigration chief said such measures were applied fairly to visitors of all nationalities, and did not affect real tourists.
Genuine tourists stayed in Thailand for an average 15 days per visit, and presented clear information about their accommodation, trips around Thailand and departure dates, Pol Maj Gen Choengron said.
Immigration police welcomed real tourists, he added.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/3144050/immigration-police-target-visitors-making-multiple-visa-runs
