Gold shop’s underwear thief leaves police searching for man who ‘phoned it in’ in Isaan

Police are searching for a male thief in underwear who stole a mobile phone from a Heng Heng Yaowarat gold shop in Udon Thani province, Isaan. No, it’s not a Viz episode of Felix and his Amazing Underpants and the man in “hefty undercrackers” did anything but bring a “little sunshine into people’s lives.”

The owner of a gold shop, 47 year old Thanachai Ruksadondham, filed a complaint with officers at Mueang Udon Thani Police Station after learning of the theft from his employees. Thanachai also provided the police with footage from the shop’s CCTV cameras.

The footage showed that the theft took place at around 2am yesterday, October 24. The thief was a man wearing a light-coloured T-shirt, black underpants, long armbands and a beanie. He was not wearing trousers or shoes. The thief held a small torch in his mouth and searched the first floor of the store for valuables.

The thief was seen grabbing an old mobile phone from the shop counter and rushing to the store’s security room. He tried to enter the room to take gold accessories but failed. Thanachai told officers that there was no sign of robbery on the second floor, where three employees were staying. The staff did not hear any suspicious noises during the robbery and later discovered that the phone had disappeared in the morning.

Thanachai said he had four gold shops in different locations and rarely visited this shop. He left three employees to look after the premises and was pleased that the employees kept all the gold accessories in a security room, making them all safe.

The police investigated the shop and discovered a chair under a ceiling grille. Officers reckon that the thief had entered the shop through the grille. The underwear thief is still on the run and all the staff agreed that the thief was not a local as they had never seen him before.

Can underwear be a jinx-buster?

It is not clear why the thief chose to wear only underwear to commit the crime but he is not the first to do so. In July last year, police arrested a serial mobile phone thief known as Mr Underpants, who stole thousands of phones from across Thailand. His name came from his habit of wearing only underpants when he stole.

In October last year, eight houses in the Isaan province of Srisaket were robbed by a half-naked thief. Wearing only a shirt, the man robbed each house. He also tried to sexually assault a 12 year old girl but the victim screamed and managed to escape.

Another thief chose to be naked, believing he had a mystical ability to make himself invisible. The thief was caught on CCTV praying outside the temple, taking off his clothes and entering the temple grounds to steal a charity box. However, the thief was not invisible at all, and the entire theft was caught on CCTV.

Follow more of The Thaiger’s latest stories on our new Facebook page HERE.