Sole offender: Thai man nabbed for Bangkok temple shoe theft spree
Police arrested a Thai man for stealing shoes, some valued as high as 50,000 baht, from multiple temples in Bangkok. The man reportedly committed the thefts not for resale but to satisfy personal urges linked to his mental illness.
Officers from Samran Rat Police Station investigated the incidents after receiving repeated complaints about shoe thefts from temples across Bangkok. Security footage from one temple identified the thief as a 56 year old man named Surasak, who was previously arrested for a similar offence and was later released in 2022.
CCTV footage showed Surasak entering temples and ignoring merit-making activities. Instead, he focused on the shoes left outside the main halls. He would select a pair he liked, put them on, and leave the temple as though they were his own.
Police tracked Surasak down on Saturday, January 4, as he walked home. Upon searching his backpack, officers discovered numerous pairs of shoes inside. A subsequent search of his residence revealed over 50 pairs of shoes, ranging in value from a few hundred baht to 50,000 baht, with some being designer brands.
Initially, Surasak denied stealing the shoes, claiming he bought them. However, under further questioning, he admitted to the thefts.
Surasak explained that he did not steal the shoes for resale but because he had an intense liking for other people’s shoes and collected them to fulfil his obsession.
Officers informed Channel 7 that Surasak suffers from a mental health condition that compels him to collect others’ footwear. A review of his phone confirmed that he did not attempt to sell the stolen shoes on any platform.
During the investigation, one victim visited Surasak’s home to recover his lost shoes, worth approximately 3,000 baht. He successfully located them among the pile of footwear in the suspect’s room.
In a related incident, CCTV footage from an apartment in Nonthaburi captured another mentally ill Thai man engaging in indecent acts with stolen flipflops. Although this man had been caught in the act multiple times, he remains at large.
In a separate case in November, a foreign man in Thailand shared a video on TikTok revealing that he parked his motorcycle and left the shoes nearby while enjoying the beach. His shoes, not the motorcycle, were later stolen. It remains unclear whether police have arrested a suspect in this case.
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