A Russian woman has been arrested in Thailand after living illegally on the resort island of Phuket for six years on an expired visa.
Local police detained the Russian citizen at a condominium in the beach town of Patong after receiving a tip from an unidentified informant, according to the Phuket News Telegram channel.
Officers visited the residence to investigate and established that the foreign national had been in Thailand unlawfully since October 12, 2020, the date her visa officially expired.
The Russian national was charged with remaining in the country past the expiration of her permitted period of stay. For an overstay lasting more than one year, she faces deportation and a subsequent ban on entering Thailand for a period of ten years.
Overstay rules in Thailand
Phuket is Thailand's largest island, situated in the Andaman Sea off the southern coast, and is one of the nation's premier destinations for international travellers. Patong, located on the island's western shoreline, is its most prominent resort center, known for a high concentration of hotels, holiday condominiums, and long-term residential developments popular with foreign nationals.
Thai immigration authorities enforce strict measures against visitors who remain in the kingdom beyond their authorised dates. Under immigration regulations, foreign travellers who overstay for more than twelve months and are apprehended by police face mandatory deportation at their own expense, along with an official blacklisting that bars them from re-entering Thailand for ten years.
Previous deportation attempt
The arrest in Phuket comes after an earlier case involving a Russian visitor seeking to leave the country. Anastasia, a 30-year-old resident of Saint Petersburg who works as a coach and negotiation specialist, had previously moved into an airport in Thailand after overstaying her visa by four months.
She decided to live inside the airport terminal in an effort to secure deportation back to Russia, hoping to avoid paying the required financial penalties for exceeding her permitted time in the country.
Following the police inspection at the Patong condominium, the Russian woman arrested over the six-year lapse faces deportation from Thailand and the full ten-year entry prohibition.
