Many expatriates living in Thailand will be required to present a police document at Immigration border checkpoints, as a result of the continuing crackdown on illegal and fake Thailand Entry and Exit stamps found in passports.
Foreigners with passports containing fake stamps who did not report this to the Thai police before trying to leave Thailand may end up in prison instead of on their way home, being arrested at the border and charged with conspiracy in committing fraud against the Kingdom of Thailand.
The Immigration Bureau of Thailand has instructed all Immigration offices and border checkpoints not to prosecute foreigners found with fake entry and exit stamps in their passports, provided that they can prove they filed a complaint with the police as having been cheated into obtaining those fake visa stamps.
Police Colonel Montri Kosiyasathit, the Deputy Commander of the Immigration Police Bureau 1 in Bangkok, Visa Extension Division, is hereby warning foreigners and expats not to give their passports to tour operators or other companies offering to carry their passports to the border to obtain the needed stamps or their behalf. Such offered services will usually only result in illegal fake stamps being added to the foreigners passport.
These services, he further added, had over time developed from companies providing group transportation for foreigners doing a legal "border visa run", to systems where unscrupulous operators, together with corrupt Immigration officials, conspired to provide the necessary stamps without the passport holder actually leaving the country or even presenting himself at the border check points.
Now many such businesses have fake rubber stamps and passports don't even leave the tour operator's office. I am very worried that many foreigners and expats actually believe that the system of sending passports to the border is legal, Khun Montri said. Newcomers and Expats alike, see those services advertised in newspapers and local magazines and therefore assume that this system is completely legal in Thailand, which it is not, he added.
If foreigners or expats would suspect that they have received false stamps, then present your passport at the immigration office where it will be checked, by doing so, the foreigner will not be arrested at the border on departure, but they must first confirm to the local police and the Immigration Office from which company they received those fake visa stamps.
Colonel Montri said that the Thai Immigration Service was aware that passports of many foreigners, currently still residing in the country, contain fake visa stamps and will translate in their arrest at the moment of leaving the country.
