Thailand exposed as crime hub over MH370 stolen passports

[ezzra]

But entering Western countries with a stolen Western passport "is not easy," said Ahmed Salah Hashim, Associate Professor at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

He gives credence to the theory that terrorists may have targeted MH370, particularly since the two stolen passports were under Interpol surveillance.

Thailand does not check passports against Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database -- which has more than 40 million entries -- a senior Thai immigration police officer told AFP.

The international police organisation has urged countries to screen all passports "for the sake of innocent passengers".

So Thailand does not even check passports against the Interpol list, great security. It appears they don't even check their own data base.

And neither dose Malaysia apparently....but they make you take your shoes and belt off....

[Ricky Koh Samui]

Nice to see the Italian and 2 x Thai Police thinking this is all amusing...

Thailand: Tha land of Smiles - ing Assa--sins.... where Money is King.... hmm

[AlphMichaels]

Saw this coming.

[bluesmith]

Police,Thinking hard. Now who can we blame???????????

Absolutely correct they are never wrong are they

[janderton]

Why didn't the Thai travel agent enter passport numbers in Interpol database at time of booking...

Thailand does not check passports against Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database -- which has more than 40 million entries -- a senior Thai immigration police officer told AFP.

[rucus7]

What tangled web is woven in Thailand.

[mijan24]

We are out in full force with nonsense slagging Thailand post over a worldwide issue of stolen passports.

Flight information seen by AFP shows that two tickets in Kozel and Maraldi's names were issued in Pattaya, a beach resort south of Bangkok, on March 6, 2014, and were paid for in Thai baht.

Extracted the above from a news report-simple statement but fails to address the real truth:

Some sources say the agent selling the tickets saw the purchaser others say they were purchased on line (online you get an electronic ticket) in the above paragraph you will notice they were paid for in Thai Baht - now does this mean the purchaser physically paid in cash (Thai Baht) or was it from a bank account either from a Thai bank or an overseas transfer that was ticked to pay in Thai Baht - please lets get some real aspects not just journalistic claptrap.

Yes all the knockers are out of the woodwork with nary a constructive comment.

Not only on Thai Visa but reports from everywhere are full of "it" never let the truth get in the way of a "STORY".

[Minnehaha]

I know a guy who was unfortunate to have his passport stolen twice over the course of a year here back in the 90's. First replacement was easy, but the second was a 1 year book and he had to renew every year. Pain in the ass for visas obviously cause the last 6 months of a book are a problem. He dutifully went to the consulate and did the requisite paperwork. 3 years later he was summoned in to speak with the Consul, who asked him if he ever trafficked in drugs etc. After a while he was shown a photocopy of his passport - all details identical except the photo was of an African fellow. He was a Nigerian arrested entering Bali with a lot of coke. Years later, the American was renewing his passport and they renewed it for 5 years.

During that time he visited Indonesia several times - Jakarta, Bali included. One day entering Jakarta immigration said wait a minute... you are blacklisted. Come with me. He was interrogated and the room filled with officials. He offered his luggage to be searched and his person.

They said the passport had been altered (it had - pages were added and it was extended by the State dept), but nothing was illegal. He was escorted on the return flight that evening.

He got a new passport and has since traveled to Indonesia without problems. So far.

This raises the issue of blacklists. Once on one, how do you get removed? Not so easy.

It seems the Indonesians were looking for $$ more than anything else, I think.

[smileydude]

Malaysia would love for Thailand to be the hub of anything but success but lets not forget 2 out of 4 of the passports of dubious origins came from China. So is China the hub of crime also? I see the start of a blame game but at the end of the day Malaysian Immigration and Airport Security will have to take full responsibility for their failure. As for terrorism that is the responsibility of the world to fight.

Edited March 11, 2014 by smileydude

[bander]

"It is confirmed now that they are not Asian looking males... The team of investigators have looked at the video footage (from airport CCTV)," Civil Aviation Department chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said, declining to give any other details on the men's appearance."

Outrageous, why not publish the photos of the two persons with stolen passports, what is Department chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman trying to cover up?

Not Asian looking males, does it mean they are westerners or africans?

Something smell here, my guess is they keep on leaking this kind of news to by time.

Maybe they already know who is behind the "disappearing" of MH370

[farangbanok]

So Thailand does not even check passports against the Interpol list, great security. It appears they don't even check their own data base.

Forgive me for my ignorance on matters geographical but unless Thailand has annexed Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur where the passengers boarded is in Malaysia so NOT a Thailand problem.

Since, as reported elswhere, the passports were not used to leave Thailand any reference to the Thailand database is irrelevent .... and possibly racist!

If you are so worried about Thailand security go back to whence you came .... overland naturally.

Edited March 11, 2014 by farangbanok

[Lupatria]

But entering Western countries with a stolen Western passport "is not easy," said Ahmed Salah Hashim, Associate Professor at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

He gives credence to the theory that terrorists may have targeted MH370, particularly since the two stolen passports were under Interpol surveillance.

Thailand does not check passports against Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database -- which has more than 40 million entries -- a senior Thai immigration police officer told AFP.

The international police organisation has urged countries to screen all passports "for the sake of innocent passengers".

So Thailand does not even check passports against the Interpol list, great security. It appears they don't even check their own data base.

Its not that they don't check in Thailand !

However, if you browse a passport for three minutes just to find evidence for an overstay to fork in some head-money, you have little time to look for unrewarded issues with 100 more people waiting in line.

Another unbelievable point: They take your picture at the counter and the Italian passport contains a biometric scan of the holders face. If it doesn’t match with the biometric scan of the data base photo, you are not the person on the pic. Even a six year old can identify the difference. But maybe that takes one too many mouse clicks- and as we all know- that will cause headaches.

A mandatory European passport with biometric scan cost around 4.000 Thb, it was half price for the former ones. Value for money? Not here, as they turn out just to be stamp pads.

[Suriya4]

"Thailand does not check passports against Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database "

And you are paying 800 Baht every time you are at the airports. I suppose that is for the Free Internet.

[bander]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

I know a guy who was unfortunate to have his passport stolen twice over the course of a year here back in the 90's. First replacement was easy, but the second was a 1 year book and he had to renew every year. Pain in the ass for visas obviously cause the last 6 months of a book are a problem. He dutifully went to the consulate and did the requisite paperwork. 3 years later he was summoned in to speak with the Consul, who asked him if he ever trafficked in drugs etc. After a while he was shown a photocopy of his passport - all details identical except the photo was of an African fellow. He was a Nigerian arrested entering Bali with a lot of coke. Years later, the American was renewing his passport and they renewed it for 5 years.

During that time he visited Indonesia several times - Jakarta, Bali included. One day entering Jakarta immigration said wait a minute... you are blacklisted. Come with me. He was interrogated and the room filled with officials. He offered his luggage to be searched and his person.

They said the passport had been altered (it had - pages were added and it was extended by the State dept), but nothing was illegal. He was escorted on the return flight that evening.

He got a new passport and has since traveled to Indonesia without problems. So far.

This raises the issue of blacklists. Once on one, how do you get removed? Not so easy.

It seems the Indonesians were looking for $$ more than anything else, I think.

Another "I know a guy" story, what is the name of the bar you heard it? The gossip bar?

[farangbanok]

A mandatory European passport with biometric scan cost around 4.000 Thb, it was half price for the former ones. Value for money? Not here, as they turn out just to be stamp pads.

I guess you are joking, or out of touch, I just renewed my UK passport -

[Cost

You’ll have to pay a fee for your passport and a courier fee of £19.86. The courier fee pays for your passport and supporting documents to be sent back to you securely.

Passport type Passport fee Total to pay (including courier fee) Adult standard 32-page passport £128.00 £147.86 Adult jumbo 48-page passport £154.50 £174.36

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports/y/thailand/renewing_new/adult ]

Plus 1400 baht Courier to UK

Plus 1000 baht address certification and renew driving licence with new address

Plus 800 baht translation of licence

So where you get 4000 baht from is a mystery to me, unless a UK Passport is NOT a European Passport.

[chooka]

"It is confirmed now that they are not Asian looking males... The team of investigators have looked at the video footage (from airport CCTV)," Civil Aviation Department chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said, declining to give any other details on the men's appearance."

Outrageous, why not publish the photos of the two persons with stolen passports, what is Department chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman trying to cover up?

Not Asian looking males, does it mean they are westerners or africans?

Something smell here, my guess is they keep on leaking this kind of news to by time.

Maybe they already know who is behind the "disappearing" of MH370

I would put quid down and say they were Iranians. Not saying they were involved in terrorism but simply purchased the passport to get into/immigrate to a European country. Probably had buckley's of doing so through legal means. A little like the boat loads of Iranians arriving on Australia's shores claiming refugee status.

[Larry001]

Surprise surprise!!! Talk about a country going down the gurgler very fast. So easy to buy any type of fake IFD in Thailand. A policeman will get it for you

[Lupatria]

Malaysia would love for Thailand to be the hub of anything but success but lets not forget 2 out of 4 of the passports of dubious origins came from China. So is China the hub of crime also? I see the start of a blame game but at the end of the day Malaysian Immigration and Airport Security will have to take full responsibility for their failure. As for terrorism that is the responsibility of the world to fight.

So is China the hub of crime also?

Is this a serious question?

[Larry001]

We are out in full force with nonsense slagging Thailand post over a worldwide issue of stolen passports.

Maybe its time you got your head out of the sand. You certainly do not have much support for your post.

[oldsailor35]

Time to recruit and train a completely new Thai Police Force. Let the present one remain doing what they are good at, Spot crash helmet checks, directing school traffic with multiple kids on motorbikes and collecting tea money in general.

[rotorbreeze]

But entering Western countries with a stolen Western passport "is not easy," said Ahmed Salah Hashim, Associate Professor at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

He gives credence to the theory that terrorists may have targeted MH370, particularly since the two stolen passports were under Interpol surveillance.

Thailand does not check passports against Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database -- which has more than 40 million entries -- a senior Thai immigration police officer told AFP.

The international police organisation has urged countries to screen all passports "for the sake of innocent passengers".

So Thailand does not even check passports against the Interpol list, great security. It appears they don't even check their own data base.

Having had my passport stolen, I can assure you that they do check against their own database. I was delayed at every Thai border crossing for at least a year afterwards.

Yes I can vouch for this as me too had been detained on Visa Runs to Cambodia on my stolen passport for years afterwards... to date now no checks as this was 8 years ago... one question how did the known passport stolen passengers not board the flight and their bags did?

Edited March 11, 2014 by metisdead
Oversize font reset to normal. Do not post using overly large font.

[oldsailor35]

A mandatory European passport with biometric scan cost around 4.000 Thb, it was half price for the former ones. Value for money? Not here, as they turn out just to be stamp pads.

I guess you are joking, or out of touch, I just renewed my UK passport -

[Cost

You’ll have to pay a fee for your passport and a courier fee of £19.86. The courier fee pays for your passport and supporting documents to be sent back to you securely.

Passport type Passport fee Total to pay (including courier fee) Adult standard 32-page passport £128.00 £147.86 Adult jumbo 48-page passport £154.50 £174.36

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports/y/thailand/renewing_new/adult ]

Plus 1400 baht Courier to UK

Plus 1000 baht address certification and renew driving licence with new address

Plus 800 baht translation of licence

So where you get 4000 baht from is a mystery to me, unless a UK Passport is NOT a European Passport.

Do over 70's get a half priced PP like they do in Australia ?

[Yunla]

Crime and deception hub, say it isn't so!

Thaksin could import ship-loads of Arabian sand, and sell it to people on the promise that if you buy a big enough heap of genuine Arabian Sand you can drill it for oil. People would buy it.

Re; the passports, I was clearly instructed way back, that I should not leave my passport anywhere or with anyone, and infact I should carry it with me at all times in Thailand. The first part is sound advice and makes sense, the second part I do abide by although it means I have to be extra vigilant. Obviously the problem is not so much relating to passport theft / loss, but to the passport database and the efficiency of checking passports thoroughly at all major borders / institutions.

[oldsailor35]

In Thailand, watch your passport

BY TERRENCE MCCOY

WASHINGTON: -- While nearly every aspect of this weekend’s disappearance of a Malaysian jetliner is surprising, one element is not. At least two of its 239 passengers had been traveling with stolen passports — and those documents had been lost in Thailand, home to what’s become one of the most robust stolen passport trades in the world.

Both Luigi Maraldi, a short-haired Italian, and a 30-year-old Austrian named Christian Kozel had been traveling through a southern province in Thailand called Phuket when their passports were lost — or stolen.

In 2012, Kozel’s went missing in Phuket, which juts out of Thailand’s main coast like a snaggletooth. And on July 22 of last year, someone took Maraldi’s after the Italian submitted his passport as collateral on a rented motorbike, by far the most used means of transportation in Southeast Asia.

Message boards from Lonely Planet to Thai Visa are clogged with accounts of stolen passports or ruminations on whether to leave their own at a bike shop. New Zealand, which sends thousands of tourists to Southeast Asia every year, warns its travelers to never leave their passports with a motorcycle rent shop — because no one knows where they could wind up.

Full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/10/in-thailand-watch-your-passport-2/

-- The Washington Post 2014-03-11

Thailand should make it an offence to leave your PP anywhere as you must be able to produce it at any time if requested by police or immigration.

[bushman1666]

Police,Thinking hard. Now who can we blame???????????

Will have to be a foreigner. Thai people good. Foreigner bad.

Sent from my very clever thingy that uses battery far too quickly

[expat888]

Those of us that live in Thailand knew that Thailand is the hub corruption, forgeries, thugs, stolen passports, the list goes on.

This is not news it's just the outside is exposing it. Finally.

[Kerryd]

Well it really shouldn't be much of a surprise. Consider the various factors.

Thailand requires all tourists to have their passports on them at all times (even when at the beach or in the bar all night). Makes them easy pickings for people that specialize in that kind of thing.

Hotel safes - for those that decide it's safer to leave their passport in the safety and security of their hotel "lock box" or safe. We've heard numerous stories of just how unsafe those can be, especially in the "shadier" hotels. Those electronic safes in the rooms ? The hotel staff can probably open them faster than the people that make them !

Broke punters. Yeah, they are literally everywhere. Not just the balloon chasers, but the guys who've cashed in their return tickets and ditched their hotel and barely have enough cash for a lone, small, warm glass of draft. I have no doubt at all that more than a few of them would happily exchange their passports for a few thousand baht. Worry about getting back home (somehow) once the money is gone (again). After all, isn't that what friends, family and your government there for ?

Corruption. It's been known for a long (long) time that if you need pretty much any kind of documentation (license, certificate, ID, passport, etc), Khao San road was your best bet. If the authorities were serious (seriously, stop laughing) - they may not be able to completely shut it down, but they could surely put a major dent into the "trade".

But they don't and I'm sure we all have a pretty good idea why.

Add into all that the advances in technology, the many, many countries that don't have advanced (technology-wise) passports and the "element" of society that specializes in these matters and together it makes Thailand a very attractive place to do that kind of business. Not to mention that the huge tourist industry, with 10's of thousands of people going in/out of the various Immigration outlets every day, makes it easy to smuggle people around.

And while Interpol's stolen passport database sounds nice, think about it. If every Immigration officer at every Immigration counter in Thailand had to check every passport against a database containing 40 million(+) stolen passport numbers, imagine just how long the delays would be getting through. As noted in the various news articles, very few countries actually use that database, and probably for that very reason. More likely it is used mainly if someone is arrested and they suspect the passport may be dodgy. Otherwise instead of spending 2-3 minutes at the Immigration counter, you could be held up 5-10 times that long (now think about all those people that just got off that A-380 ahead of you) !

And when something in the "system" breaks down (computers, servers, databases) what happens ? Longer line-ups, or just "giving-up" and going back to no checking at all ? (Guess it would largely depend on who is issuing the contracts and who is receiving them.)

But if you want to live in Paradise, you've got to take the good with the bad ! Could be worse, you could still be living back (wherever) and wishing you were in Thailand !

[Always18]

"Caretaker Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul proposed the setting up of a database on missing or stolen passports for use by immigration police to arrest people using them at gates to enter or leave the country"

Yep - that would make perfect Thai sense.................much easier to save face that way than just tapping into the existing Interpol database and having to answer awkward questions about why they didn't do that before!

[oldsailor35]

"Thailand has been used by some international terrorist groups as a zone of operation, to raise funds or to plan attacks," said Rommel Banlaoi, an analyst on terrorism in South-East Asia.

Surprised? Not at all... What are the root causes? Exactly the same and for the road accidents, the scams and other major problems that have been increasing in Thailand for the last decade:

No standard + No control + No safety + No authority + No implementation or respect of laws and regulations + widespread corruption = Total laxism and anarchy!

it does not mean that Thailand directly supports or funds Terrorism. Of course not. But indirectly because of laxism and corruption, the country has become a major playground for all kind of mafias and terrorists. Remember a few weeks ago, this story about fruits and veggies sold containing formalin? One seller was saying that is only concern was to increase profit!!! Somehow this is the same root cause. Here in Thailand, money can buy absolutely everything. There is absolutely no (more) moral and common sense. So, of course, it reaches a point where a total failed State leads to all kind of abuses and extremes; from road fatalities (Thailand rank 2nd in the World), food full of pesticides and chemicals (No law, no control), widespread tourist scams and the latest, Terrorism activities.

Actually I am very surprised that a major terrorist attack has not happened yet in Thailand. This country is such a failed State managed by a bunch of clowns.

Most probably just a matter of time...

We want to say "WAKE UP THAILAND", but after saying this for 10 years, there is no more hope.

come on be fair

this is all part of Taksin Democracy

every one has a right to do what he wants

The only real crime in Thailand is being caught

then if you say sorry to Buddha and some money for the police for their time

Its back to business again

Or you can surround yourself with armed thugs, as Khun Suthep does.

[me313]

A little more of the reality of Thailand exposed in the news--still not showing the real corruption but hinting at what might be happening, if people have the type of degenerate imagination to guess at the ugly, ugly corruption that really goes on at high levels of "official" sanctioning.....bs bs bs