Deputy national police chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul said Thursday it would be harder to track fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra if she has obtained a UK visa, as reported by the media.
Pol Gen Srivara was responding to Thai media reports quoting an article by the BBC that claimed Yingluck has been granted a 10-year UK visa.
However he stressed that the Royal Thai Police (RTP) has yet to receive any official conformation of the reports.
He said the RTP's foreign affairs division has been assigned to send a formal letter of inquiry to the British embassy in Thailand on the matter.
As for some photos that surfaced recently showing Yingluck allegedly in the US with her elder brother Thaksin, another fugitive former premier who was ousted from power, the police are still trying to verify the date on which the pictures were taken, he said.
If they are proven to be recent the police will move to determine which of her several passports she used to travel to the US, he added.
The RTP has been working closely with the Interpol to track down Yingluck, who fled the country in August 2017.
This occurred days if not not hours before the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions' ruled against her in a negligence of duty case relating to her government's rice-pledging scheme, which incurred hundreds of billions of baht in losses.
She was later sentenced in absentia to five years behind bars.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Busadee Santipitaks said she only learnt about the photos from media reports. They were reportedly snapped at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
After the BBC story broke, Ms Busadee said on Monday the ministry has no further information about that either.
BBC Thai, whose editor is based in London, reported that Yingluck has received a 10-year visa and will be allowed to stay in the UK for up to six months at a time. The editor cited "a source close to Yingluck", whose name was withheld.
The media said she is now using a passport issued by a European country.