Gangs organised illegal crossings

A number of foreigners, many from Laos and China, have been arrested by immigration police over illegal entries by three different groups into Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

Immigration Bureau (IB) commissioner Pol Lt Gen Sompong Chingduang said 29 people had been arrested, having been hired by Chinese gangs to make the illegal crossings. The Chinese, who mostly run entertainment businesses in Myanmar and Laos, fled to Thailand to escape Myanmar’s Covid-19 outbreak and growing political unrest. 

The first 17 people, 10 of them Chinese, were apprehended in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai and turned out to belong to a gang bringing Chinese people into Thailand illegally.

The first nine were caught outside a school in the Chiang Rai district of Thoeng. Police then nabbed eight more from the same gang as they were travelling through Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son.

In the second…