138 suspects, including foreigners, arrested in Bangkok for alleged 'coercive' tour-guide training

[webfact]

138 suspects, including foreigners, arrested for alleged ‘coercive’ tour-guide training
By Kornkamol Aksorndej
The Nation

 

 

BANGKOK: -- Police yesterday arrested 138 suspects, including many foreigners, on suspicion that they might have engaged in illegal tour-guide services.

 

The arrests took place at a hotel in Bangkok on Sunday morning, while the suspects were attending a training session in the hotel’s ballroom.

 

Among those arrested were 60 Thais and 78 foreigners from China, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Most of the foreigners had entered Thailand on tourist visas.

 

“We have received complaints that training for illegal tour guides was being conducted,” Patrol and Special Operation Division chief Pol Maj-General Surachet Hakphan said on Sunday.

 

His division and police, including the Tourist Police Division, led dozens of officers in the raid at the hotel.

 

Participants at the training session, which started on Saturday, told police that they had paid Bt2,000 each to attend the event and had their cell phones taken away during their participation.

 

“We found that they were being briefed about how to sell products such as facial cleansers, rubber pillows and skincare cream,” Surachai said.

 

Police are now investigating whether the training was held to teach participants, including foreigners, about how to serve as tour guides and coerce tourists into buying products.

 

Thai laws bar foreigners from working as tour guides.

 

Sirikorn Tanachaipornsakul, who organised the training, denied arranging a training session teaching tour-guide services, adding that the event was just a post-Songkran party. However, she admitted promoting some products at the event in the hope of selling them to tourists.

 

Police said foreigners who had overstayed their visas would face immediate action while those who still had the right to stay would be barred from leaving the country until the investigation is complete.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30313131

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-04-24

 

[kannot]

and what "punishment" for the 60 Thais? Did they check all their backgrounds  too?

Surely  if the foreigners havent been out actually "selling" then there is NO case, they were simply attending a meeting " how  to  sell"

[Thechook]

Is it ilegal to attend a course in Thailand?  I had better cancel my cooking class don't want to get arrested.

[ezzra]

5 hours ago, Thechook said:

Is it ilegal to attend a course in Thailand?  I had better cancel my cooking class don't want to get arrested.

It seems that more and more it is illegal for foreigners to do almost anything in this country as we're all viewed as second class citizens with not may rights and at the mercy of Thai policy makers who move the goal posts at any time they wish and see fit....

[JAG]

Is it ilegal to attend a course in Thailand?  I had better cancel my cooking class don't want to get arrested.

Depends on whose toes you may be stepping on, and how high their "special friends" are.

[onemorechang]

Falangs grassed up.

How unusual for Thailand.

[Sooo Upto Me]

Rubber Pillows, Kinky  ???

[darksidedog]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Police are now investigating whether the training was held to teach participants, including foreigners, about how to serve as tour guides and coerce tourists into buying products.

Why would anyone want a tour guide with a pocket full of skin care products. I see no evidence of any of these people actually working. They were simply attending a seminar on how to promote certain products. Maybe the foreigners were planning on doing so at home. Police over zealous. Their idea of what constitutes "work" would be laughed at in a country where people have functioning brains.

[phutoie2]

24 minutes ago, onemorechang said:

Falangs grassed up.

How unusual for Thailand.

It did not say in the article that western foreigners were arrested. Cut down on your Chang. 

[simoh1490]

Interesting this happened this weekend because that was also the time official tour guide training took place in the form of a three day around Thailand trip, the culmination of one month of class room work - the cost however was 17,500 baht, not 2,000.

[Sphere]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

...had their cell phones taken away during their participation...

A training program that does appear to have some merit. 

[onemorechang]

39 minutes ago, phutoie2 said:

It did not say in the article that western foreigners were arrested. Cut down on your Chang. 

and the title of the thread is ?

But i never said anyone was arrested.

i said,  grassed up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cut down on your BS.

[electric]

I suspect that none of us really knows how this training session was publically advertised, but I reckon the Police were probably just acting on a tip off made by someone within the official Tour Guide program trying to protect their industry.

 

Fair enough IMHO.

 

To be a legit Tour Guide in Thailand involves a very regimented, expensive and formal accreditation process, and is a "protected job" not available to foreigners.

 

The foreigners attending this training session should have known this, and were leaving themselves wide open to the consequences that have occured.

 

For the Thai participants in this story .... hard to see that they've actually committed any wrongdoing so far. They'll probably be advised to join the official Govt sponsored program if they wish to become Tour Guides.

[robblok]

1 hour ago, JAG said:

Depends on whose toes you may be stepping on, and how high their "special friends" are.

 

Many here have special friends all the way up to the highest level. However that guy never seems to intervene anyway.

 

But being a tourguide in Thaland as a foreigner is illigal so this course was training people for an illigal act. I wonder how they would react to a marijuana growing training.

 

Seriously.. this is of course strange not sure if this counts as a crime.. does preparing a for a crime count as a crime (in the USA it does) not sure here. 

[Bluespunk]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

“We found that they were being briefed about how to sell products such as facial cleansers, rubber pillows and skincare cream,” Surachai said.

 

So not tour guides at all then.

[Bluespunk]

23 minutes ago, robblok said:

 

Many here have special friends all the way up to the highest level. However that guy never seems to intervene anyway.

 

But being a tourguide in Thaland as a foreigner is illigal so this course was training people for an illigal act. I wonder how they would react to a marijuana growing training.

 

Seriously.. this is of course strange not sure if this counts as a crime.. does preparing a for a crime count as a crime (in the USA it does) not sure here. 

Thing is, they weren't being trained as tour guides.

[Raymonddiaz]

4 hours ago, ezzra said:

It seems that more and more it is illegal for foreigners to do almost

anything in this country as we're all viewed as second class citizens

with not may rights and at the mercy of Thai policy makers who move

the goal posts at any time they wish and see fit....

Second class are issan people. We are just at the bottom of the classification.

[Bluespunk]

2 minutes ago, Raymonddiaz said:

Second class are issan people. We are just at the bottom of the classification.

And many want it to stay that way.

 

 

[robblok]

21 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:

Thing is, they weren't being trained as tour guides.

Thanks.. stupidly i did not real well.. If they were not trained as tourguides.. i dont see the problem. But the police might want to make something up because they are caught with an egg on their face.. kinda like me for not reading well.

[CLW]

When will Thailand change it's medieval working laws... [emoji36]

[pentap]

5 hours ago, ezzra said:

It seems that more and more it is illegal for foreigners to do almost anything in this country as we're all viewed as second class citizens with not may rights and at the mercy of Thai policy makers who move the goal posts at any time they wish and see fit....

Totally agree.

Lots of smiles and false promises, when they want the money. 'NO PROBLEM', comes to mind... Usual BS

But, when it comes to them giving out, they turn their backs.

The hotel management should be convicted. The Thais who attended the meeting also convicted and or treated in the same manner as the foreigners.

[pentap]

Why would anyone want a tour guide with a pocket full of skin care products. I see no evidence of any of these people actually working. They were simply attending a seminar on how to promote certain products. Maybe the foreigners were planning on doing so at home. Police over zealous. Their idea of what constitutes "work" would be laughed at in a country where people have functioning brains.

Too right!

[Anthony Loh]

If this is not a tour guide training course and after the course, no tour guides certificate or pass being issues to the foreigners, they are not illegally as the foreigners are just attending the course to sell some products and also can be at they own country.

 

Also if this course is banned for all foreigners, why the organization still allow foreigners to take part? Look like the organization are the one who need to be full responsibility for this and not the foreigners who are not aware or is this another way just to make money from the foreigners?

[pentap]

It did not say in the article that western foreigners were arrested. Cut down on your Chang. 

Foreigners are foreigners regardless if they are, Westerners or from the East, South or North.

If a person is not a Thai within Thailand, they are a foreigner. Lets be honest, foreigners in general are tolerated here but not really liked..

[GreasyFingers]

1 hour ago, electric said:

To be a legit Tour Guide in Thailand involves a very regimented, expensive and formal accreditation process, and is a "protected job" not available to foreigners.

 

That might be for some people but the step-D got her guide card in less than 1 day with minmal expense.

[jerojero]

Falangs grassed up.
How unusual for Thailand.

Read the article. No farangs involved.

[onemorechang]

Just now, jerojero said:

Read the article. No farangs involved.

ok foreigners,   happy now

[moe666]

5 hours ago, ezzra said:

It seems that more and more it is illegal for foreigners to do almost anything in this country as we're all viewed as second class citizens with not may rights and at the mercy of Thai policy makers who move the goal posts at any time they wish and see fit....

May I ask how long you have lived in Thailand, anyone staying here long term should know and understand what is legal and illigal. This is nothing new many article written about illigal tour guides

[webfact]

Large number of arrests over ‘unlicensed’ Chinese tour guide training
By The Nation

 

BANGKOK: -- Police joined tourism officials in a raid on a venue allegedly used to allegedly train almost 150 people as guides for Chinese tourists without being issued a licence to do so.

 

The raid at noon on Sunday resulted in the arrest of the woman who allegedly organised the training.

 

Along with being charged with hiring foreigners workers without a licence to do so, she was charged with selling food and cosmetic products without a licence from the Food and Drug Administration.

 

The products were allegedly sold to Chinese tourists.

 

Acting on a tip-off, police from the 191 Patrol and Special Operation Division, the Tourism Police Division and the Consumer Protection Police Division joined officials from the Tourism Department of the Tourism and Sports Ministry in the raid on the Orchestra Ballroom of the Jassotel Hotel near the Maegjai intersection in Bangkok’s Wang Thong Lang district.

 

Officials arrested 66 Thais, 62 Chinese, eight Taiwanese, six South Koreans, four Myanmar nationals and one Malaysian who were allegdly receiving training inside the ballroom.

 

Maj-General Surachet Hakpal, commander of the 191 Patrol and Special Operation Division, said police received a tip-off that the venue was being used to organise tourist guide training on Saturday and Sunday.

 

Surachet said authorities had learned the alleged organiser of the training, Sirikorn Thanachaipornsakul, 53, had briefed the trainees about products that would be offered to Chinese tourists. 

 

They include face cleaning gel, rubber pillows and skin treatment cream, he said, adding these products had not been approved for sale by the FDA.

 

He said authorities found that most of foreigners doing the training had passports that were stamped with tourist or student visas. As a result, they would be charged with seeking to work in a profession reserved for Thais.

 

Some of the Chinese arrested were found to have no passport and some had overstayed their visas. They were handed over to immigration police for deportation.

 

Those with passport with valid visas were released after police recorded their names. 

 

Surachet said these foreigners were prohibited from leaving the Kingdom until police finished the investigation.

 

Surachet alleged the people paid Bt2,000 each for the training and their mobile phones were taken away by the organiser to prevent them from taking photos and shooting videos.

 

Authorities seized training documents that were printed in Chinese.

 

Sirikorn told police she had not organised tourist guide training but had simply invited the 147 people to a banquet after the long Songkran holiday.

 

She said she owned the seized products but she simply introduced them so foreign tourists would buy them in their home countries.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30313169

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-04-24

[USPatriot]

Sounds like an amway sales class