Koh Samut community was once vibrant with shops and stalls run by Burmese selling facial powder, herbs, food and clothes from Burma. But following sporadic police crackdowns on illegal migrants, all the shops were closed. Now they are owned by Thais, but the Burmese still trade freely in the evening market without police interference. Yai says plain-clothes policemen come every week to round up illegal Burmese migrants as well as legal labourers with work permits who are forced to pay them protection fees. Police aside, a Thai extortion gang has been a constant threat, roaming the area every pay-day.
Any objection leads to brutal physical abuse.
Yai and his fellow workers need to keep their Burmese worker ID cards issued by Department of Labour on them at all times. But life goes on and new migrants continue to arrive in droves every month even though they are only allowed to work in Thailand until August 31 due to the government's planned deregulation law that forbids certain industries from using illegal migrant workers. The trucks carry between 30 and 40 illegal migrants huddled beneath the vegetables. Sometimes, serious road accidents occur en route, which often claim their lives. A different truck bound for a different border crossing will be used for this purpose.