Thirty-five foreigners have been arrested for visa offences and illegal entry during coordinated raids on 62 locations across the country early Wednesday.
Police teams from several units raided 62 targeted locations in Bangkok and other provinces, including three language schools and 11 secondary schools, said Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn, deputy commissioner of the Tourist Police Bureau.
Nine of the 35 suspects -- six from India, one each from China, Cameroon and Germany -- were charged with overstaying their visas.
Among the nine, German national Eugen Karl Mullerschon, 60, was caught in Trang for overstaying for 7,059 days. Cameroon national George Elvis Nkwi Nkwain, 34, was nabbed in Lop Buri for overstaying his visa for 1,726 days, and one of the Indian nationals, Vinod Yadav, 26, was caught in Bangkok for overstaying his visa for 1,295 days, said Pol Maj Gen Surachate.
Another 25 suspects from Laos (7), Myanmar (5), India (5), Cambodia (4), Syria (1), Egypt (1), Yemen (1), and Uganda (1) were charged with illegal entry. The remaining Indian suspect was charged with an undisclosed offence.
The string of raids on Wednesday was the 18th of the on-going crackdown, dubbed "X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner" targeting foreign criminals entering the country under the guise of tourists to carry out crimes that affected national security and tourism image such as romance scams, credit card skimming gangs.
To date, a total of 1,757 suspects have been arrested and 4,009 targeted locations searched across the country, said the TPB deputy chief.