Grieving Hungarian widow found to have overstayed since 2010 on Samui
Surat Thani immigration police have arrested a Hungarian woman after checks following her husband’s death revealed she had overstayed more than 10 years on the island.
Angelika Edina Balla reportedly admitted that she had entered Thailand on November 30, 2009 to travel before her visa expired in February, 2010.
After her visa expired, she moved with her husband to a beachside rental house in Bo Phut subdistrict and helped him run a business on the island.
However, when her husband died earlier this month, officials checked her passport and found she had been living in Thailand for 4,165 days since the date her visa expired.
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Balla was arrested on Thursday and now faces a possible lifetime ban from the country she called home for more than a decade.
She was initially charged with overstaying her visa, which is punishable with up to 2 years in jail and/or a Bt20,000 fine under the Immigration Act.
According to immigration law, anyone who overstays their visa for more than 90 days is barred from re-entering the Kingdom for one year. The blacklist extends to a lifetime if the overstay period exceeds 10 years.