BANGKOK, 16 September 2006 — Thailand will tighten visa rules next month to stop foreigners from 39 countries from working illegally and crack down on criminals using it as a haven, immigration police said yesterday. Under the new rules, visitors from countries on the privileged country list will be allowed to renew the 30-day tourist visa they can get on arrival twice in Thailand.
The current rules allow people to go out of Thailand and get another 30-day visa at an entry point as many times as they like.
Many foreign tourists who enjoy such privileges now cross into neighboring Cambodia, Myanmar or Laos to renew their visas, often on the same day, Immigration Police chief Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul told reporters.
Under the new rules, once they have used up their maximum 90 days in Thailand, they will have to go abroad to get a 60-day visa which will not be renewable in Thailand.
The changes are most likely to affect people working on tourist visas, such as Westerners teaching English, Filipina maids and Japanese and Europeans who own small businesses in Thailand but have no work permits, police said. The new rules would allow Thai consular officials and other agencies to do background checks to keep out undesirable people, Suwat said.
“The system has been abused for such a long time. We have fugitives staying in Thailand, laundering money or they act as mafias in Pattaya, Phuket or Samui,” Suwat said in reference to three beach resort towns popular with foreigners. These places have gained reputations as Asia’s “Costa del Crime” — the nickname given in the 1980s to the Spanish Costa del Sol due to the presence of many high-profile British fugitives.
Drawn from as far afield as Western Europe, Russia and China by the widespread availability of false documents, such mafias exist in part because of lax law enforcement and corrupt officers. The new rules would “keep Thailand clean for all the good people like you,” Suwat told Thai and foreign reporters.
The 39 affected countries include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Greece, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and most of Thailand’s nine Southeast Asian neighbors.
Tourists from other countries can still get a 15-day visa on arrival or a 30-day visa in their home countries.
The new rules, drawn up by immigration police over the past year, will take effect more than a month after the arrest in Bangkok of American teacher John Mark Karr, suspected of killing a child beauty queen in the United States 10 years ago. Karr worked briefly as a teacher for several schools in Bangkok without a work permit before his arrest in the Thai capital, police said. He was sent back to the United States where he was cleared of suspicion.
