Norwegian on way to see Thai girlfriend arrested after faking his Certificate of Entry

[PEE TEE]

1 minute ago, EricTh said:

He's young and good looking, he shouldn't have any problems back in Norway to get some girlfriends.

Quite right but you know how the lovely Thai girls can brainwash young men as well as old men 

[new2here]

2 hours ago, Farma said:

I was watching closely at the pre-immigration desk just inside the immigration queue area. The lady immigration officer took and kept my COE. She had a long list which i presume were arrivals from my flight and checked my COE against that list before directing me to the actual immigration desk. I honestly think it would be hard to sneak in with a fake COE.

 

Correct..

 

Each CoE is individually numbered and each issuing post essentially uploads to the MFAs data base what CoEs they’ve issued, to whom, and for what dates.

 

That’s why IB and the airport knows who to expect each day, from where and off what flight... they essentially have a pre-arrival manifest. 

 

Unless you had a way to get a get a fraudulent CoE also uploaded to the MFAs database/portal, you’d have a hard time getting past the IB at the airport.  You’d probably be ok at the departure airport (unless the local embassy staff is there to do a doc check) and any connections.. but at BKK is probably where the music would stop. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by new2here

[Oldie]

20 minutes ago, PEE TEE said:

Quite right but you know how the lovely Thai girls can brainwash young men as well as old men 

Is it brainwash or are these people simply too stupid? 

[Jiggo]

4 hours ago, allane said:

I have a good laugh anytime I see the TAT, or anyone else, talking about "vaccine passports". How would this ever be made to work ?  Everyone and his dog would be creating and printing their own "vaccine passport" on their home computer. Immigration officials would have no way of knowing if it was authentic.

Would have to be on a International Database, so can't see it working.

[madmen]

4 hours ago, allane said:

Everyone and his dog would be creating and printing their own "vaccine passport" on their home computer. Immigration officials would have no way of knowing if it was authentic.

Nonsense. Maybe 1 or 2% will try it on but you are forgetting the fact that people will not commit fraud number 1 because people  are law abiding in general and committing fraud comes with consequences ESPECIALLY big consequences when flying half way round the world with hotels booked and black listing. 

The OP is a perfect example case closed ????️

[NanLaew]

43 minutes ago, sghanchey said:

This is what people in the U.S. are getting from the Center for Disease Control (CDC). In Thailand it would have to have at least three rubber stamps in order to look halfway official. 

 

That liquid paper (white out) is a dead giveaway IMHO.

[DaLa]

8 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

 

That liquid paper (white out) is a dead giveaway IMHO.

That and the John Bull printing kit he was given by his mother as a Christmas present.

[PEE TEE]

24 minutes ago, Oldie said:

Is it brainwash or are these people simply too stupid? 

probably the latter .but he sure wanted to come back to Thailand to see her  could be true love ? 

[champers]

Why issue a traveller with a CoE paper copy at all? Just have an online version sent to immigration at the passenger's final destination. No CoE in situ, no entry. OK, no CoE at point of departure but would anyone buy a ticket if they knew there was no CoE for them on arrival?

This obsession with bits of paper and multiple copies of this and that just makes Immigration's job that much more complicated than it needs to be.

[AMFWolfie]

5 hours ago, 4MyEgo said:

He obviously didn't get it online here in Thailand did he ????

I thought every COE issued by Thai embassies world wide were registered with immigration to check against when you arrived which is how they tracked and confirmed entry figures or at least tally how many COE have been issued. Why you would forge one when they are free is another matter. Covid tests on the other hand, are expensive and no way to check if they are forgeries and readily available off the Internet for next to nothing. Unfortunately airport/airline check-in staff and subsequently Immigration on arrival can hardly check the authenticity of every Covid test and Fit to Fly certificate issued from so many different sources in so many different countries. Perhaps an official test and negative result at every international airport  before boarding a flight would be far easier to validate by the authorities at arrival destinations, after all, many airports have one hour testing available and would certainly help to get the tourist industry moving again providing the tests were accurate and showed even asymptomatic and mild infections.... just saying or is that to simple!!

[ukrules]

5 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

The question was posed way back in July on a CoE / ASQ thread where someone suggested faking the documents. The obvious answer to that is that consequences for getting caught out are too severe, i.e. Black list from Thailand, its just not worth the risk. 

 

I think you'll find there's a large number of people won't really care about being blacklisted from Thailand, it's a big world.

 

This is why people do stupid stuff, if they get booted out then it's not the end of the world for them, they just move on to somewhere else.

 

It's the same with the idiots who cause fights in bars, they get thrown out and banned from coming back but there's plenty of other bars for them to go to.

[Farma]

2 minutes ago, champers said:

Why issue a traveller with a CoE paper copy at all? Just have an online version sent to immigration at the passenger's final destination. No CoE in situ, no entry. OK, no CoE at point of departure but would anyone buy a ticket if they knew there was no CoE for them on arrival?

This obsession with bits of paper and multiple copies of this and that just makes Immigration's job that much more complicated than it needs to be.

If you get rid of that there's also the other bunch of docs in the folio you need to show at check-in and departure lounge and then again on arrival and at the ASQ.

COE, ASQ booking, covid insurance, PCR certificate and Fit to Fly cert plus maybe health insurance depending on visa type.

 

[Teee]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Norwegian on way to see Thai girlfriend arrested after faking his Certificate of Entry

 

Picture: Thai Immigration

 

Thailand's immigration bureau reported that they arrested a Norwegian man with a fake certificate of entry (CoE) at Suvarnabhumi airport.

 

The man presented the document to officers at the illustration desk at the airport but they immediately became suspicious. 

 

A subsequent check with the Royal Thai Embassy in Oslo showed that the document was a fake. 

 

Picture: Thai Immigration

 

It looked official with a stamp and said that he would be arriving from Norway on the 16th of January and quarantining under the Alternative State Quarantine program at a hotel in Sukhumvit Soi 57.

 

The man was in Thailand on his way to see his Thai girlfriend but was handed over to the airport police instead.

 

Picture: Thai Immigration

 

The IB website also reported on the arrests of Singaporean and Pakistan nationals who had entered Thailand illegally. They were picked up on the biometrics system after being questioned on the fourth floor departure area at Suvarnabhumi.

 

They also reported on three drugs busts involving methamphetamine and cocaine.

 

Source: Thai Immigration

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2021-01-28

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

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Any CoE, Visa etc issued by a Thai Embassy in any country would be automatically entered on the system. Therefore soon as you enter Thailand and go to the Immigration desk on arrival Passport Number entered and all the details would show up.

Easy to spot someone trying to use fake documents

[Oliver Holzerfilled]

This guy is a textbook example of Thailand being the ultimate destination for westerners with a long history of making extremely bad life decisions. 

[from the home of CC]

jail him till the pandemic is over as he is a danger to public health. I'm surprised this hasn't happened a lot more frequently considering the morality of many visitors here..

[scoupeo]

be prepared for fake vaccination certificate...

 

[from the home of CC]

2 hours ago, anfh said:

The only way to make it even vaguely foolproof is to have the vaccine passport linked directly to peoples own passport, ie a government official addition, rather than merely a document which can be faked .

that would help but as passports are also faked it's far from perfect. As long as there are those who believe their personal satisfaction is far more important than anyone else this will be a continuing problem world wide - it's the main reason so many have died..

[SpanishExpat]

What a moron! you CANNOT fake a COE, as every COE is unique with a number on the top left corner. It states the Code of the embassy where you applied for  + a multiple digit number. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by SpanishExpat

[Kurtf]

Hahahaha. I don't even know what a COE is.

[ThaiWai]

4 hours ago, Farma said:

I was watching closely at the pre-immigration desk just inside the immigration queue area. The lady immigration officer took and kept my COE. She had a long list which i presume were arrivals from my flight and checked my COE against that list before directing me to the actual immigration desk. I honestly think it would be hard to sneak in with a fake COE.

Maybe he should have followed you instead of going to the "illustration desk" as quoted from the article.  Or maybe he thought that was proper as his COE was hand drawn??

[Stevemercer]

Why does everyone assume the guy knowingly entered with a fake CoE. He could have been sold a dummy.

[jphripjah]

2 hours ago, TSF said:

Not going to be any fake covid vax documents, nobody's going to do international travel using a paper certificate. Your vax details will be added to your online file. Your travel agent will check it before processing your bookings, the airport check in counter will check it prior to issuing your boarding passes, IOs will check it prior to stamping your passport....it's not going to be a grubby piece of paper you have spilt beer on and folded up so many times it's falling apart. 

What online file?  If I want to fly from Thailand to Cambodia on Air Asia, what will the airline and Cambodian immigration check other than my grubby piece of paper saying I was vaccinated?

[RocketDog]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

The man presented the document to officers at the illustration desk at the airport but they immediately became suspicious. 

Maybe if he had gone to the immigration desk he could have entered. 

I've always avoided the illustration desk since I can't draw for รhเt. ????

 

Seriously these kinds of errors occur in nearly all media these days. Proofreading is a lost art and literacy in general is going that way. 

[Sheryl]

4 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

 

How tight and well managed exactly?

 

All the staff are doing is checking a paper document.

 

I too returned on an Embassy arranged repatriation flight (in July), but now the CoE is issued with just a booking. 

 

Thus, I am speculating whether or not a more authentic looking fake would be picked up at all. 

 

Perhaps, as you mention, the Embassy forwards all CoE’s registered to a specific flight so that the arrivals team can check the passenger off the list (as you say ‘whitelist only affair’).

 

 

 

 

From all the accounts I have heard, staff at airport have detailed prior notification of who is expected to arrive, when and staying at what ASQ. Details presumably received online from MFA. And the ASQs are on hand to receive them, nobody gets out of the arrival area except in the "custody" of an ASQ driver/in an ASQ van (or hospital transport). The whole thing is quite tightly run and there was never the least chance this man would get in. He succeeded in fooling the airline staff at boarding, is all.

 

Thanks to this, there may be tighter controls at airline boarding in future.

[IraqRon]

or, this tattoed up Norwegian was and is really a part of the drug cartel and needed to get into Thailand for business purposes.  The girl friend part is just a cover.

[wewillwewillrockyou]

Even millionaires have to fake COE. How far people will go? 

[tonray]

Put him on a boat back to the land of the midnight sun. Dumb@##

[Farma]

I just looked at a backup copy of my CoE and it has an embassy registration number and QR code along the top. Apparently I was number 20 CoE issued by the embassy I applied through this year.

[Peterphuket]

This is always the time the Normans are coming....no difference from 1000 years ago.

[sammieuk1]

The one in the white is to make him feel at home during his mandatory 500 year stay the one in the black is to rob him blind ????