The
victims point to pickpocket gang leader Sunan Lamsaard.
Boonlua Chatree
The head of a family-based gang of suspected thieves
previously arrested for stealing from tourists has been arrested again for
allegedly pick-pocketing a Belgian man’s wallet containing 90,000 baht in
cash and airline tickets.
Sunan Lamsaard was taken into custody Oct. 6 after being
picked out of book of mug shots by Robert Eeckhoudt, 62, and his 39-year-old
wife Naiyana Piromna. Suspected of leading a gang of family members in
pick-pocketing tourists in baht buses on Thepprasit Road, the 40-year-old
Sunan was arrested, but set free, for a similar crime in 2001.
The couple positively identified Sunan, but the woman
denied she had anything to do with the Oct. 4 theft of their property from a
baht bus near the Dolphin Roundabout.
Naiyana said she and her husband had just arrived from
Belgium to visit friends in Pattaya and were taking a taxi from Naklua Road
to Royal Garden Plaza when two women boarded the bus and began chatting with
her husband. Only when they exited the baht bus did Eeckhoudt realize his
wallet - containing 2,000 euros, their return air tickets, passports and
credit cards - was missing.
The Thai wife immediately suspected the over-friendly
women and they immediately filed a police report.
The couple had to contact Eeckhoudt’s daughter in Europe
for money to return home, which they planned to do right away, becoming two
more tourists quickly turned off to Pattaya by the police’s inability to
keep known thieves off the streets.
If you
get on a baht bus and see either of these two women, either get right out
again or make sure to protect your valuables.
