Digital nomads chased out of Thailand’s PunSpace and detained by police

Who said that being a digital nomad is all about beers and beaches?

Today, an entrepreneur known as “Johnny FD” reported on his blog that 18 tourists were chased out of PunSpace, a Chiang Mai coworking space, and taken to Thai immigration authorities in a police van (hat tip to e27 for the spot).

Another four foreigners at the scene produced some form of identification on hand, but were still asked to go to immigration authorities. These four, of which JohnnyFD was one, eventually drove down themselves.

Some 20 armed uniformed police and immigration officials arrived at PunSpace in the late afternoon saying they would detain anyone who could not show their passports. After further questioning, one of the officers said that they were not under arrest.

Johnny FD writes that the owners of PunSpace, to their credit, were quick to respond to the situation:

The owners of PunSpace were called and rushed here and have been extremely helpful. They ever showed the officers letters saying that they were operation a coworking space which is similar to an internet cafe, and that no one here is working for a Thai company or making Thai wages, meaning they are not taking Thai jobs or working illegally.

The raid comes as a surprise considering not long ago, CityNews Chiang Mai reported that digital nomads in particular were allowed to run their businesses locally:

If you are a ‘digital nomad’ running your own business on the internet, the immigration office says you can do this on a tourist visa.

According to a commenter named Kevin Douglas, many people left Coffee Monster, another popular local coworking space in Chiang Mai, when they heard of the news.

The entire incident, however, turned out to be a false alarm: