mikeymike100

Both the UK and USA have a completely porous Southern border?????

You would think so, they take your pic every time you enter and leave the country.

Its fair enough they give you 24 hrs to produce your passport. Most tourists going out would only have their passport as ID, not a local DL or ID card. As many have commented taking your original passport out with you if you were going out for a night drinking is a crazy thing to do. If the police raid a venue looking for over-stayers surely they would have a portable fingerprint scanner to check people IDs as other countries have. Having said that if you carry a picture of your passport and visa,on your phone that should suffice.?

Certainly possible knowing Thailand, they started in Feb 2018 , but were supposed to finished in 6 months, I haven't seen any update.

Thailand seems to attract a lot of criminals, like this guy, I wonder why?

It was supposed to happen in 2018, when they started putting in those fingerprint scanners. Now whether is has been done, is anyone's guess

Right, understood, but surely if they are looking for over stayers they would have immigration cops that do have access, they must be able access it remotely. Checking ID by looking at passports is just a lot easier.

Right On! Otherwise why have immigration officers?

When you arrive at the airport, what do think the IO does? He swipes your passport and it brings up all your past history. When you go to immigration for say an extension of stay, what do they do, they pull up your details on their database, it has your photograph, history and probably fingerprints. The average cop may not have access to the database, but obviously immigration cops do? Dont they have some smart BMWs? You are supposed to carry ID cos the cops are lazy.

Right, but when they check the database, it has your picture, so unless you have a twin they would find out?

Quite so. Immigration have a 'secure' database of every foreigner entering and leaving the country, including pictures and fingerprints. Most tourists will be staying in hotels where the hotel must report who is staying to the police. I know some long term folks have condo, houses etc, but they must send a 90 day report in? So the police only have to after the real criminals, those that are on overstay, dealing drugs etc. Presumably these kind of folks dont frequent discos, they keep their head down. Raiding these places full of foreigners on the off chance of catching someone is over the top. They should do some detective work instead, then if they get a tip off that a particular venue has some criminals, fair enough, raid it, but just randomly raiding bars, discos etc doesn't work well and upsets the real tourists.

I think you are correct, but surely if you give them your name, nationality, DOB, obviously telling the truth, they can check the database, this done in other countries, USA, UK etc?

Yes it would hit the headline of every international news outlet, claiming xenophobia at best or even racism. ????

The problem is if they did that, may genuine tourists wouldn't go to Thailand, getting a visa is sometimes a pain in the neck, getting a criminal record check would put a lot of folks off, even if they weren't criminals.

Same here, carrying your original passport when going out for a night on the town is a disaster waiting to happen! Losing your passport or having it stolen is a real pain, not only the expense, but having to get a police report, maybe a temporary emergency document etc. If you have everything on your phone then pretty sure immigration can figure it out if you are on overstay?

Who is going to risk 40 million baht on an investment, knowing in 6 months or whenever the law could change? On top of that as we are only guests here , have no rights and we could be thrown out of the country at any time.

Yes its very sad to watch how racist they really are, but they think its not? Amazing Thailand ????

Referring to the Chinese, "Surachate said they were all mixed up in illegality whether it be call center crime, drugs or entertainment places in Bangkok." This must be the fourth story this week about Chinese and police corruption! Who would have thought?????

He will be even more upset next week!????

I take your point, but I was playing devils advocate. If for the sake of argument the 2 guys really thought the girls were of legal age and they had been led to believe that with corroborating evidence, then the court would look at that mitigating evidence before determining a sentence. Personally as i have said before the available evidence makes them look guilty, it was a 'What If' scenario!

Quite so and I do take your point and I was attempting sarcasm. The thing is most of these guys probably don't even speak English, so there is a very limited number of jobs they can do, lucrative or otherwise?

I am not saying or claiming that underage prostitution is OK and the Thai Penal Code will also not say that obviously. That is certainly NOT the point i am making. What I am saying, for the sake of argument, is if it could be proven, in court, that the two guys were led to believe that the girls were of legal age and ID's were shown to corroborate that, then this evidence would be mitigating circumstances in the eye of the court? You are saying "Completely Irrelevant" I am disagreeing with you, I am saying it would be relevant. Surely in any criminal case there are aggravating and or mitigating circumstances that the court would need to consider? You are the one dancing around claiming "the law" doesn't say that?

Whilst i take your point, the fact is most of them are not going to be qualified Doctors or Lawyers etc, so what are they going to get a job as? A Criminal?

Totally agree with you. Most of the folks who can leave have already left.

Exactly, even when they do catch these thieves, they fine them 500 baht and let them go.