A habitual gambler who stood to lose his family’s rice farm was arrested for allegedly stealing 196,000 baht in jewelry from a Chonburi gold shop.
Roi Et-native Wayu Rattanawinai, 25, was captured Oct. 12 at Chiang Mai Bus Terminal 2 with four of the seven baht-weight in stolen gold plus 73,000 baht cash.
He was brought back to Chonburi to re-enact the crime for police and the media the next day.
According to his confession, Wayu went into the Aurora gold shop at the Robinson Department Lifestyle mall in Muang District Oct. 10, feigning interest in two 2-baht-weight bracelets and a 3-baht-weight necklace, supposedly for his girlfriend’s birthday.
When the clerk got distracted, Wayu booked it for the door and a waiting motorbike. But Wayu dropped his mobile phone, making identifying him easy. Still, he managed to make it as far as Chiang Mai before being caught.
Police said Wayu confessed that he owed gangsters a huge amount of money from gambling and had staked his family’s rice fields as collateral. They were about to be taken by the gang, so he resorted to desperate measures to save the farm and pay off his debt.
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