News Forum - ‘Big Joke’ goes back to school to hunt visa crooks

[Thaiger]

As Big Joke leads his investigation into Chinese gangs operating in Bangkok, the probe is expanding so fast that it is only a matter of time before the cops are investigating every business in the nation’s capital. There are no untouchable as criminal Chinese businesses appear to have pervaded almost every corner of Thai life from the scum floating at the top of the highest of high society to the bottom feeders of Khlong Toey. Now police have decided to investigate language schools and immigration officers. Celebrity cop Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn – “Big Joke” to friends and enemies alike […]

The story ‘Big Joke’ goes back to school to hunt visa crooks as seen on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

[HolyCowCm]

This guy is literally a complete joke. What he is good at is irritating folk and this he should watch out for as one day might come back to bite him again like before. So annoying.

[KaptainRob]

7 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

This guy is literally a complete joke. What he is good at is irritating folk and this he should watch out for as one day might come back to bite him again like before. So annoying.

That's not nice HC ... he's actually a great guy and precisely what's needed in the fight against crime and corruption.   BJ's putting the word around Thai-style to get rats scurrying for cover and others spilling the beans to curry favour.  Thailand needs more like him.

Surachate Hakparn has a family connection to the Shinawatra clan although his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Royal Thai Police appears to be due to his personal leadership skills.

This article is a good reference > https://www.thaipbsworld.com/the-curious-career-of-surachate-hakparn-thailands-resurrected-police-star/

[Rookiescot]

17 minutes ago, KaptainRob said:

That's not nice HC ... he's actually a great guy and precisely what's needed in the fight against crime and corruption.   BJ's putting the word around Thai-style to get rats scurrying for cover and others spilling the beans to curry favour.  Thailand needs more like him.

Surachate Hakparn has a family connection to the Shinawatra clan although his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Royal Thai Police appears to be due to his personal leadership skills.

This article is a good reference > https://www.thaipbsworld.com/the-curious-career-of-surachate-hakparn-thailands-resurrected-police-star/

I have said this for a while. He is unpopular with the expat community because he actually started applying the rules. Whether the rules made any sense is another thing.

However he did not just target expats. He started going after the corrupt within Thai government, society and even the police. This made him very unpopular. He was transferred and indeed his car was shot up. Astonishingly his car was a run of the mill Honda (?) which was exactly the kind of car which is affordable on his salary. 

Later he was returned to active duty and is now a high profile "problem solver". 

As a group we may not like him but credit where its due. He appears to treat all groups the same and does try to uphold the rule of law. Something we demand on a daily basis on these forums.

Like him or not. If there were more guys like "Big Joke" Thailand would be better for it. 

[TheDirtyDurian]

The plot thickens....

 

Be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of all this. Especially if mud ends up sticking to future PM Thaksinminime

[KaptainRob]

2 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

He is unpopular with the expat community because he actually started applying the rules. Whether the rules made any sense is another thing.

His personal intervention in the management of Chiang Mai Immigration saw a complete overhaul, for the better, after their big boss was stood aside. 

[Rookiescot]

8 minutes ago, KaptainRob said:

His personal intervention in the management of Chiang Mai Immigration saw a complete overhaul, for the better, after their big boss was stood aside. 

Yeah I do not believe he holds any ill will towards us guys. He simply applies the rules. If people are not applying the rules or treating departments as their own little kingdoms then they get moved.

I suspect "Big Joke" would like to go further and see people prosecuted but that is perhaps a step too far as things stand.

[HolyCowCm]

3 hours ago, KaptainRob said:

That's not nice HC ... he's actually a great guy and precisely what's needed in the fight against crime and corruption.   BJ's putting the word around Thai-style to get rats scurrying for cover and others spilling the beans to curry favour.  Thailand needs more like him.

Surachate Hakparn has a family connection to the Shinawatra clan although his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Royal Thai Police appears to be due to his personal leadership skills.

This article is a good reference > https://www.thaipbsworld.com/the-curious-career-of-surachate-hakparn-thailands-resurrected-police-star/

Maybe not nice but oh well. To me he is just a glorifed attention getter with big head. But I will give him some credit as he has done a few good things, and he is way more squeeky clean than the most majority of the guys in his profession. Let's see what more he does and he may one day sway my opinion of him.

Now I enjoy watching a former top cop Santhana and Chuwitt swinging it out. And I guess Big Joke is listening to Chuwitt, so he does take action.

[Cleite]

all Chinese mafia houses must be picked up . All those who collaborated with the Chinese mafia must be punished with a minimum of 20 years in prison, and for some, the death penalty . The Thai government must act hard and fast to clean up its country before it's too late.

[Soidog]

I note the Bangkok Post has reported that a number of senior Immigration Officers have been found to have accepted bribes to help a large number of Chinese gain Non-Immigrant-O visas having entered the country on tourist visas. I’m unsure why they needed to bribe IO’s as it’s perfectly possible to convert a tourist visa or indeed a Visa Exemption stamp in to a Non-O visa. Unless this is not the case for visitors from China? Perhaps our resident visa expert @Faz could comment or clarify. 
 

The link to the BKK Post article is below:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2455332/ib-top-brass-took-bribes-for-triad-visas

[Faz]

15 minutes ago, Soidog said:

I’m unsure why they needed to bribe IO’s as it’s perfectly possible to convert a tourist visa or indeed a Visa Exemption stamp in to a Non-O visa.

It is if you can meet the requirements and criteria - these obviously couldn't.

[Manu]

On 12/4/2022 at 10:23 AM, KaptainRob said:

That's not nice HC ... he's actually a great guy and precisely what's needed in the fight against crime and corruption.   BJ's putting the word around Thai-style to get rats scurrying for cover and others spilling the beans to curry favour.  Thailand needs more like him.

Surachate Hakparn has a family connection to the Shinawatra clan although his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Royal Thai Police appears to be due to his personal leadership skills.

This article is a good reference > https://www.thaipbsworld.com/the-curious-career-of-surachate-hakparn-thailands-resurrected-police-star/

I totally agree with you. Thailand would be a better place with more people like him, at least the endemic corruption would have something to somehow worry about. He got removed (and then his car shot) after he disagreed with the plan of buying a biometric system worth 2 billion bths, pointless according to him. It seems really obvious that it did not please some and what happened next.

However what I am questioning is the reason behind his reinstatement by Prayut, it smells the political move from miles. And since really, every single week he is making a media conference about a case or a crackdown against some, all of them being either foreign criminals, foreign visa overstayers or specific cases that have made the headlines in the media and social media. All the things that always please conservative voters, surely in Thailand, who are the ones who indeed support the current government. Basically BJ has become a simple political instrument... sad.

[SkyDogJack]

I know some don't like "Big Joke", but if he really does go after the corruption in the Thai underworld, good for him.  Everyone in the world that pays any attention knows that the CCP in China does not care about anyone but themselves.  They do nothing to stop the flow of the raw ingredients to make methamphetamine and Fentanyl flowing across the world.

We are all second-class people to the Chinese government, both Thai, American and elsewhere.  My opinion?  Cut off the flow of Chinese drugs and the put a stop to the Chinese Mafia.  And do the same with the Russian mafia.  We have all seen too much suffering and death resulting from these two countries.  Time to stop them.

https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/general/40021401

[HolyCowCm]

5 hours ago, Manu said:

However what I am questioning is the reason behind his reinstatement by Prayut, it smells the political move from miles. And since really, every single week he is making a media conference about a case or a crackdown against some, all of them being either foreign criminals, foreign visa overstayers or specific cases that have made the headlines in the media and social media. All the things that always please conservative voters, surely in Thailand, who are the ones who indeed support the current government. Basically BJ has become a simple political instrument... sad.

Bingo!

[KaptainRob]

6 hours ago, Manu said:

However what I am questioning is the reason behind his reinstatement by Prayut, it smells the political move from miles.

IMO it's political but not the way you think.

[Manu]

3 hours ago, KaptainRob said:

IMO it's political but not the way you think.

In which way then to your opinion?

Quote

On November 29, police raided 11 locations across Greater Bangkok, including a luxury housing project in the La Salle area of Samut Prakan.

Police searched three of the 50 houses in the project owned by a suspected nominee of the drug syndicate and paid for in cash. Many of the houses were built and sold (allegedly for cash) by SET-listed SC Asset Corporation owned by the Shinawatra clan.

The deal – potentially worth billions of baht – is convoluted and complex, of course – but if anyone can make sense of it all, Big Joke can. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, youngest daughter of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, and probable candidate for PM if no better sock puppet can be found, is the largest shareholder. She’s followed by big sister Pintongta Shinawatra Kunakornwong. Khunying Potjaman Damapong, Thaksin’s former wife, is the fourth-largest shareholder.

And that to you is a complete coincidence too.

Now these 2 are obviously up to here in corruption. However if BJ beore the election gets his nose in someone very close to the regime, some in the government and/or in their party (just as much corruption there), instead of only a future PM candidate and the specific cases as mentioned in my previous post, then I would be the first to say that I was wrong.

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, Manu said:

In which way then to your opinion?

And that to you is a complete coincidence too.

Now these 2 are obviously up to here in corruption. However if BJ beore the election gets his nose in someone very close to the regime, some in the government and/or in their party (just as much corruption there), instead of only a future PM candidate and the specific cases as mentioned in my previous post, then I would be the first to say that I was wrong.

It is kind of sort-of guilty by association on the good or bad spectrum. Joke is a wild card on the regime's political possitive side is if he can be infact reeled in. 

[Soidog]

All of this attention about visas and visa rules is potentially bad news for many long term stayers in Thailand. It may not mean that people meeting requirements can’t remain, but it may mean a tightening of rules and a strengthening of the requirements. Any attention by such a nationalistic government is not likely to end in good news. 

[SkyDogJack]

On 12/4/2022 at 4:52 AM, Rookiescot said:

I have said this for a while. He is unpopular with the expat community because he actually started applying the rules. Whether the rules made any sense is another thing.

However he did not just target expats. He started going after the corrupt within Thai government, society and even the police. This made him very unpopular. He was transferred and indeed his car was shot up. Astonishingly his car was a run of the mill Honda (?) which was exactly the kind of car which is affordable on his salary. 

Later he was returned to active duty and is now a high profile "problem solver". 

As a group we may not like him but credit where its due. He appears to treat all groups the same and does try to uphold the rule of law. Something we demand on a daily basis on these forums.

Like him or not. If there were more guys like "Big Joke" Thailand would be better for it. 

There will always be political connections.  There will always be those who like BJ and those that don't.  It is simple math to me.  Thailand has a serious problem (as do many countries, including the USA) with organized crime and the flow of laundered money and drugs, not to mention the issue of sex and human trafficking which Thailand unfortunately has a very tarnished history that they seriously need to repair. 

I have noticed in the last year that there is a lot more international attention nowadays regarding Thailand in both American and other international news reports.  Very little of what is reported is good.  If this helps Thailand, great!  I have family in Thailand, and I don't want to be notified any of my family was injured or otherwise suffered because of these problems we are talking about.

We all need to clean up our own houses.  If Thailand's government actually takes serious stab at this problem, whether using BJ or anyone else, I say go for it.

Edited December 8, 2022 by SkyDogJack
Cleanup my post.