Remember back in 2017 when we reported that ousted PM Yingluck Shinawatra had fled the country via the Cambodian border? Well, turns out there was an exceedingly good reason for that.
A story in yesterday’s South Morning China Post revealed that the 51-year-old former PM is a proud holder of a Cambodian passport, which she used to register as the sole director of something called the P.T. Corporation Company. Yes, “Corporation Company” sounds a bit redundant to us as well.
Though it’s unclear what the Hong Kong-based company does exactly — a Google search turns up precisely nothing on them — the SCMP said the firm was incorporated on Aug. 24, nearly a year after Yingluck’s disappearing act.
The news came to light from corporate filings that are publicly available in Hong Kong.
“If it is an official [Cambodian] passport, the question would be, how does someone like Yingluck get the passport?” Chong Ja Ian, a professor of foreign policy at the National University of Singapore, told the SCMP.
“If you want to travel relatively inconspicuously, having a passport such as a Cambodian one would be easy in that sense.”
For those that haven’t kept up with the Shinawatras, Yingluck became Thailand’s 28th prime minister in the 2011 election, but was removed from office in a military coup just three years later.
She was found guilty of criminal negligence in 2017 and sentenced in absentia to five years in prison after her disappearing act.
In October of that year, the Royal Thai Police requested a Red Notice for her by Interpol. We should probably point out here that a “red notice” can be obtained by pretty much any country for any reason. Yingluck is not listed as “Wanted” on Interpol’s website.
Reader Interactions