Drunk Thais claim knife-point robbery was self-defence

Police charged three drunk Thai men with robbery after they brandished a large knife and gun in an attempt to rob a foreign tourist in the Khao San area of Bangkok. The robbery attempt took place outside the Tang Hua Seng department store in Banglamphu. The victim was a Romanian tourist.

The three are currently being held at Nang Loeng Police Station The drunk robbery suspects denied the charges and even tried to blame the tourist for the incident, claiming it was a drug deal gone bad.

The 28 year old Romanian tourist was waiting to catch a bus for a trip to Koh Kood. Three drunk Thai men aged 24 and 25 attacked the tourist. Two of the men had weapons with one flashing a gun in his waistband and another waving a one-foot-long knife.

The tourist panicked and agreed to hand over 1,800 baht and a 36,000-baht Xiaomi phone to the robbers. Luckily, as he was laying the phone on the ground, police arrived and intervened. The Romanian man got all his belongings back safely.

The drunk suspects denied the robbery charges and claimed they are not thieves, just drug dealers. They said they were only in the area to sell cannabis. When trying to sell the somewhat legal drug to the Romanian tourist, he had put a pinky to his nose, the universal sign that he wanted cocaine.

Being law-abiding weed dealers, they told the man, of course, that they didn’t have any cocaine. They claim the tourist then got aggressive and attacked them. They had no choice but to pull out the massive knife in self-defence.

They also claimed that the gun was just a harmless prop – a Thai-made gun with a broken barrel. The drunk men said they did not brandish the gun in any threatening manner during the robbery. They contended that just before the police pulled up, the tourist voluntarily put his phone on the ground.

The police were easily able to determine that the men in custody were less than sober. But the trio denied using drugs and just admitted to being very drunk at the time of their robbery antics.