This latest police raid must be the one Paulsf described on the other thread as this article says “ Big Joke” held press conference in Montien Hotel car park Surawong at 2:30am.

 

http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/topic/12039-there-are-other-bars/page-2?do=findComment&comment=126397

 

 

 

From The Nation

 

October 19, 2018 09:59 By The Nation

 

Acting Immigration Police chief Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakpal, who recently got the job because of his relentless crackdowns on foreigners living unlawfully in the Kingdom, vowed on Friday to get rid of 7,000 overstaying foreigners by the end of this month.Surachate, better known as “Big Joke”, made the promise in a 2.30am press conference at the Montien Hotel ar park on Surawong Road in Bangkok’s Bang Rak district. He addressed reporters to announce the results of his 37th “Operation X-Ray Outlaw Foreigners” in which he had dispatched police to 265 locations around the country the day before. The targeted places included tourist destinations, language schools and private schools. He 700 foreigners had been arrested during the latest crackdown. Of these, police found that 247 had sneaked into the country without a visa, 104 were overstayers and 349 had failed to report their residential addresses or violated the alien business law.

 

Immigration police and tourist police have so far checked 5,071 spots around the country and arrested 3,501 foreigners with either lapsed visas or no visas, Surachate said. He said he has been told that a further 7,000 foreigners were still in Thailand on expired visas and all would be deported by the end of October. He also threatened legal action against any Thai employers who hired overstaying foreigners or those without visas at all.Surachate has targeting foreigners who had no right to be in Thailand since he was he deputy tourist police chief, when he labelled his first crackdown “Operation Black Eagle”. He has habitually chosen odd hours to announce the results of his weekly crackdowns.

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30356757

Kicking out people who are ILLEGALLY in a country is common practice in many countries. I believe even liberal countries like the USA do this.

 

What I would be interested to see is data to show where they come from.

Specifically, how many westerners vs people from Thailand's neighbours who only have to cross a river or a porous land border to get to Thailand.

Recent report suggest Big Joke is targeting Africans.

 

Surachet – deputy commissioner of the Tourist Police Bureau known as Big Joke in the Thai media – said unashamedly that most of those arrested were dark skinned.

 

“He named Nigeria and Guinea as places where many of the criminals hailed from.”

 

http://www.samuitimes.com/big-joke-having-a-big-effect-on-bangkok-transnational-crime-as-thousands-of-africans-arrested/

 

https://news.lovepattayathailand.com/national/the-man-of-the-hour-big-joke/

I understand the police were out again tonight in Patpong and Silom. I was in Twilight and didn’t see any police.

But did have a little trouble getting taxi as like last night there were police cars parked on Surawong and taxis wouldn’t park outside Twilight or Patpong.

Last night when I saw police checking passports, Yes it was obvious they were more interested in darker skinned people.