Four Chinese tourists were arrested yesterday for trying to use fake passports at the Thai-Myanmar border checkpoint in Mae Sot district of Tak province.
Four Chinese men -- three aged 21, and one aged 27 -- were apprehended, according to Pol Col Sangkhom Tatso, head of immigration checkpoints in Tak province.
"Immigration police run random checks. We stopped their car and asked them to show their passports.
They looked nervous so we decided to recheck their passports and found out they were all bogus," he said.
He said they admitted using fake passports to enter Thailand from Cambodia at the Aranyaprathet border in Sa Kaeo province and planned to cross the border into Myanmar.
They also told police that they paid 30,000 baht each for the fabricated passports and 9,000 baht to the driver to take them to the Myanmar border.
Police also arrested Amnat Thongpan, 40, driver of the van for smuggling the four Chinese men.
The four were sent to Mae Sot police station and were charged with forging official documents while the van driver was charged with assisting illegal migrants.
Thai immigration has beefed up security and surveillance at the border in Tak as the region is a major drug-smuggling route.
Besides regular arrests of drug smugglers, immigration police found a rise in Chinese nationals using fake passports to enter the casino and special economic zone in Shwe Kokko, a town located by a river in Myanmar, just over 20km from Mae Sot district.
The project is believed to be the largest ever overseas investment project by Yatai International Holding Group from China.