{"id":76531,"date":"2026-02-28T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T05:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/28\/bangkok-police-arrests-in-disguise"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T05:00:02","slug":"you-cant-hide-from-the-invisible-why-bangkok-police-make-arrests-in-disguise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76531","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You can\u2019t hide from the invisible\u2019: why Bangkok police make arrests in disguise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Critics claim the operations are geared at social media, but police say they have enabled real arrests<\/p>\n<p>Police officers from Bangkok\u2019s metropolitan bureau had less than 24 hours to prepare for their latest undercover operation. They would be starring as performers of a lion dance at a temple fair held for the lunar new year. Their mission: track down and arrest a suspected thief who had a history of evading officers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe dance was spontaneous. We just did what we did,\u201d said the police captain Lertvarit Lertvorapreecha, adding that nobody had time to practise. In his haste, he accidentally picked up his colleague\u2019s male mask, which he wore with a red silk dress, trousers and tactical shoes.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/28\/bangkok-police-arrests-in-disguise\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Critics claim the operations are geared at social media, but police say they have enabled real arrestsPolice officers from Bangkok\u2019s metropolitan bureau had less than 24 hours to prepare for their latest undercover operation. They would be starring as &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":888,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-thailand"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/888"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76532,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76531\/revisions\/76532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}