NARATHIWAT – Immigration Police has arrested 19 Bangladeshis after receiving a tip-off from the public that a person resembling a foreigner was seen at Taba Market in Che He sub-district of Tak Bai district, Narathiwat Province.
When the officers approached the man, he said that his passport was in a commercial bank and that there were 18 other Bangladeshis in the building.
Deputy Commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, Pol. Maj. Gen. Pantana Nuch-cha-nart, said that the inspection of the passports of all 19 people found that they were all Bangladeshi passports. The passports had entry stamps from the Immigration Bureau on January, 8, 2024, for 15 of the passports, and January 9, 2024, for 2 of the passports.
However, all 19 passports had visa stickers that were irregular. When the officers checked the Immigration Bureau’s information technology system, no travel records were found for any of the passports.
The 19 Bangladeshis said they had come from Bangladesh and were in Cambodia. Bangladeshis in Cambodia had arranged accommodation for them and taken their passports to have them stamped with Thai entry stamps so they could travel to Malaysia.
The cost of stamping their passports with Thai entry stamps and paying the agents in Bangladesh amounted to 400,000 to 500,000 taka per person, or around 145,000 baht.
The arresting officers detained the 19 Bangladeshis and took them to Tak Bai police station for trial. The Narathiwat Provincial Immigration Police and Tak Bai Police Station will continue to investigate to find more perpetrators of the smuggling network.
Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a trend of Bangladeshis being smuggled into Thailand via Cambodia. They cross the border into Thailand from Sa Kaeo province by plane and then transfer to cars. They are then taken in stages from the Cambodian border to Bangkok and the surrounding area before being taken to the southern region.
The crimes of the perpetrators of this network continue, and they have changed their modus operandi and methods of movement. Recently, there have been cases where fake Thai Immigration Department stamps and visa stickers have been used to deceive the authorities when traveling to Malaysia.
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