Phuket Immigration sends warning to lawbreakers

Phuket Immigration has posted three separate reports this week announcing the arrests of different wanted people at Phuket International Airport from May 1 to May 5.

The arrests were made by Immigration Police officers together with officers from the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), both part of the Royal Thai Police.

An unnamed man was arrested in the passport control area of the International Terminal at around 7am on May 1. The man had been wanted on a warrant (No. 20/2563) issued on Jan 24 this year by Phuket District Court, but Phuket Immigration did not reveal the exact charges against him.

At around 11am on May 5, an unnamed woman was arrested during passport control before departure at the International Terminal. The woman had been wanted on a warrant (No. 160/2566) issued on Apr 4 this year by Phuket Provincial Court on charges of category 1 drug possession (methamphetamine).

Around 4.30pm on the same day, another unnamed woman was arrested during passport check on arrival at the International Terminal. She had been wanted on a warrant (No. 244/2566) issued on Mar 13 this year by Minburi Criminal Court in Bangkok on charges of fraud with property.

All the arrested suspects were handed over to relevant authorities for further legal processing.

Phuket Immigration Chief Col Thanet Sukchai had earlier told The Phuket News that his office had become more active in both law enforcement and media coverage of arrests.

Col Thanet was referring to foreign ’overstayers’ at that time, but the number of reports in Thai language and about Thai lawbreakers has significantly increased in recent months as well. The Phuket Immigration Checkpoint page on Facebook had around five to six “airport arrest reports” for both March and April. The number of arrests for May stay at three, whule the number of reports has already reached four.

In a separate move, Phuket Immigration’s regular reports on foreign arrivals now include warnings to Thai landlords about the requirement to register their foreigner dwellers, as well as statistics on the arrests of Thai nationals ignoring the requirement.

All the reports are published in Thai language only.