The chilling story of a Canadian expat (video)

1e: If you work in that sector, you can indeed stay in Thailand on a tourist visa. For example, an offshore installation has different rotations depending on the region, but often it is 28 days on and 28 days off. Then you simply fly from Thailand to your installation and back when your work is done. Yes, you can on a tourist visa. Has some disadvantages because you can't arrange a lot of things with a tourist visa, but I know more who do it that way.

2nd: Maybe, but if the government takes your passport because they want to keep you, does that matter? After all, they are the ones who won't let you go, not the other way around.

3rd: Medication for diabetes you can just fly with that provided you have a doctor's statement. If he still has to work every 28 days and goes back to Canada or somewhere else, he can also buy his medicines abroad under normal circumstances. Only a bit of a nuisance if the government confiscates your passport, of course.

4th: People who work freelance in that world earn nice when they are working but when they are free they don't earn anything. They often live on a large scale because they have a big salary, but if they are without work for half a year or in such a case, then they are out of luck. He reports paying about $26000 in income tax in Canada, so a quick estimate shows he has a gross income of $90.000 to $100.000 per year. Because it is a freelance contractor, he also has to arrange matters such as his own pension and also matters such as insurance for disability, etc. That is really very little for a freelance engineer in that world, so it is probably not a specialist or management position. (Do you count in USD, for a senior management position in Europe, a company loses an average of USD 200,000 to USD 300,000 per year, depending on how high your position is and the location, and that is simply employed by a company, not freelance. the company also for your pension and you are usually also insured etc) Plus since it is a freelance contractor he probably also has to pay for his own flights, so 6 return tickets per year is also going fast.

5th question: Canada has a public healthcare system, since he indicates that he simply pays taxes there, he can probably also use the healthcare there for free. Who paid for his ticket? If he's not completely broke then he might have some change for that 🙂

Furthermore, I also find the story rather far-fetched, especially at the end where they would hold him for a 500 baht fine? I know that everyone has a different view of corruption, but I think that in this case those charges would have gone away with a mutual settlement or with a financial motivation towards the agent in question. Some law firm had pointed this out to him. Furthermore, I am not an expert in the field of Thai law, but his tiff with the German seems to me to be a civil case and not so much a criminal case, so why would they confiscate his passport???