Integrity Legal

United States criminal warrants are a serious matter that should be addressed in a timely fashion. That being said, there are those Americans outside of the USA who have outstanding US warrants. In many cases, the presence of a US warrant on one’s record can cause many travel complications.

In the past, the Thai Immigration database was not equipped to retain information regarding arrest and fugitive warrants for other countries. However, a recently released article promulgated through the website Thaivisa.com has noted that Royal Thai Immigration Police are implementing new measures in order to apprehend those with outstanding warrants from countries outside of Thailand. To quote Thaivisa.com directly:

“Thai Immigration officials plan to build an online information network that will collect arrest warrants from around the world in hopes of nabbing criminals hiding out in the Pattaya area…At a meeting at Immigration Division 3, Col. Athiwit Kamolrat, head of the Chonburi Immigration Office, said immigration police are working with the Suppression of Human and Child Trafficking, and Youth and Women’s Protection divisions of the Royal Thai Police to tighten the noose on human traffickers, pedophiles and international fugitives that often use Pattaya as a base or hideout…He said officials are currently closely monitoring Europeans from France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom; Asians from Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea; as well as those from Russia and the United States for whether they have entered Thailand legally, have obeyed the law and are not hiding from authorities at home…To boost their efforts, Athiwit said the Pattaya Immigration Office will take the lead in setting up a “transitional crimes information center” which will collect arrest warrants from around the global as well as extradition requests received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

For those with an outstanding US criminal warrant or fugitive warrant obtaining a new passport can be very difficult as the personnel at the American Citizen Services Section of the US Embassy in Bangkok will likely confiscate the passport of an American with outstanding criminal warrants. The measures being undertaken by the Thai Immigration authorities would seem to denote that the Thai government is increasingly looking to crack down on fugitives who are present in Thailand. How these new rules will ultimately effect the Thai Immigration process and the obtainment of a Thai visa remains to be seen, but it could be inferred that Thailand is taking an increasingly hard line against the presence of foreign fugitives in the Kingdom of Thailand.

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