Road Checkpoints?

[troob]

I took an overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok a week or so ago. Enroute, the bus was stopped several times at road checkpoints. Policemen would then come on board, walk up and down, sometimes with a flashlight. I noticed they also asked for ID from a few of the passengers.. only a few though, and coincidentally only from male pax.

Can anyone explain why this happened? Just curious.

[mrtoad]

There seems to be more of them around at present. Partly due to Emergency Decree stuff, but also I have noticed that the BIB are stopping a lot more motorists at present - as usual with The BIB involved it's nothing more that a shakedown to extort money out of people.

[IanForbes]

Illegal aliens from Burma, Cambodia and Laos travel by bus. It is those that get taken off the busses. Very few farangs get checked... other than just your passport occasionally.

[Farma]

Around our area I've been told the checkpoints become active if they've had intelligence on drug shipments.

[Farma]

Also to add this has been going on for years.

Back in the mid 80's all buses leaving Phuket stopped at the checkpoint near the bridge. Police would enter the bus and video all the passengers.

Every now and then they would recognise a wanted passenger and remove them from the bus. At other rimes it was common for 1 or more passengers recognised on the video to be removed from the bus at the next checkpoint.