Thailand News
Discover the most recent and relevant news from across Thailand on The Thaiger’s National News page. Covering a wide range of topics, including politics, business, crime, and lifestyle, our dedicated team brings you breaking news, in-depth analysis, and exclusive stories from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond.
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A job for ghost busters
SAKHON NAKHON : Old beliefs die hard in the villages of the Kusumal district, where a wave of ghost stories spread panic this month. Villagers said that four monks, on a walking pilgrimage, awakened ghosts and took magic oil from dead bodies. The monks, however, were not well-practiced in black magic, so they couldn’t control the awakened spirits. Among the…
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Is there a real doctor in the house?
UDON THANI: Laborers Samrit Rattanawong, 38, and Prayad Ubolkrut, 29, knew that doctors’ bills could be expensive, but they didn’t realize that a routine check-up would end up costing them 60,000 baht each. The two went to Panyavej Hospital for a medical certificate they needed to apply for work in Singapore. A doctor, who introduced himself as Dr Charnwit Sattayaprasert,…
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And for my next trick…
CHIANG RAI: A monk who claimed he used his magic powers to make a pickup disappear from a showroom had some trouble persuading police about his vanishing act. There were no witnesses, but the vehicle was discovered 27 kilometers away from the Mazda showroom in Chiang Rai, with an empty gas tank. Suspicion fell on the monk, Ekachai Pattanaeakwong, who…
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Motorbike hacker nicked
PATTAYA: Stoned, broke and angry, Ampon Rattanchot tried a new form of persuasion when a cousin refused to lend him money. Police arrived on Soi Yensabai in south Pattaya to find Ampon babbling incoherently and slashing away at the cousin’s motorcycle with a sword. Police restrained the hysterical man and found 10 ya bah (methamphetamine) pills in his pocket. Ampon…
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It’s an Ultraman world
ROI ET: Tough gangs are always causing trouble in Roi Et but no one expected the toughest of them all to be all female. The 50 members of the Ultraman Gang are aged 17 to 24 and by night they threaten people in pubs, karaoke bars and restaurants. Some of them are still at school and meet after class. The…
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A fatal frog in the throat
SURAT THANI: Somjai Jansong, 61, was looking forward to visiting his relatives in Thachana district, where his nephew Manit Disdetch, 46, was throwing a party. When K. Somjai arrived, K. Manit explained that he had prepared a special dish for the party, which he called “wild frog”. The frog, he boasted, weighed about one kilogram and he had caught it…
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Car stripper
NONTHABURI: A thief out to strip a car of valuables stripped himself naked in a bid to persuade police he was mad and deserving of sympathy. But his ploy failed. His ability as a performer was duly noted because the car he chose to break into belonged to Ploy Jaroenpura, 37, the elder sister of the singer Mai Jaroenpura, and…
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Don’t monkey with me, says hostage taker
CHANTHABURI: In Planet of the Apes, the monkeys threatened to take over the world. They did not succeed, but no-one has ever bothered to point that out to one particular individual named Oran. She recently took over a patch of Chantaburi province and was not prepared to surrender it to anyone. People and dogs learned to steer clear of Oran’s…
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Pet roaches face ban
BANGKOK: Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyurapan has warned that cockroaches imported from Madagascar could face an import ban if research finds that they are dangerous to human beings. K. Sudarat’s warning follows the discovery that many vendors at the famed Chatuchak Market recently started selling the cockroches as pets. The imported cockroaches are unusually large, certainly bigger than any cockroaches…
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Caught dead to rights
SAMUT PRAKAN: A 51-year-old undertaker at Wat Thongkung was arrested recently after he confessed to having sex with a dead woman. Filled with remorse, Sakchai Thumaseeda wrote a letter to the dead woman’s mother, spilling the beans on his nocturnal necrophiliac exploits with “Bee”, a 31-year-old woman who had recently died of Aids. Mum was not impressed and called the…
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Lottery “losers’ win
NAKHORN SRI THAMMARAT: The rules of the new-fangled underground lottery are easy: the player must pick five numbers. If none of these five numbers is the same as the last three numbers of the first prize in the government lottery, the player wins. For each 100-baht bet, the player wins 1,500 baht if his numbers don’t come up. Police, already…
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Monk nails black magic curse
PHRAE: Somkiat Jummoh, 20, had been suffering from stomach pains for almost a month. His local doctor diagnosed the problem as hemorrhoids, but when the pains grew worse, Somkiat went to Phra Yuppharach Denchai Hospital where X-rays showed he had four two-inch nails and two fishhooks in his intestines. Somkiat was then taken to Phrae Hospital where doctors said he…
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Bank protestor shows he has balls
BANGKOK: Chuay Kotchasit had led a group of 50 people from Kanchanaburi to the Ministry of Finance in Bangkok to hand in a petition to Deputy Finance Minister Varathep Ratanakorn against the Savings Bank. Chuay had led protestors against the Savings Bank in Kanchanaburi before, when the bank refused to return the money the people had put into a fund.…
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Bad neighbor caught brown-handed
NAKHORN SRI THAMMARAT: Neighbors Anan and Prasert had got along fine until the day they argued. That’s the day Prasert found out just how vindictive Anan could be. First, kitchen utensils started to disappear from Prasert’s kitchen. Then the situation grew worse: Prasert found excrement splashed on washing he’d hung out to dry. So Prasert installed a video camera and…
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That ole Oedipus complex
NONG KHAI: Somchai Saenkaew, 40, attacked his younger brother Kamsai, 33, with a sickle when he found Kamsai attempting to commit what anyone in their right mind would consider to be a foul crime. Kamsai suffered wounds to his back, neck, and right arm and was left to bleed to death in the dirt in front of the family home…
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Who you gonna call?
AYUDHAYA: There is a new craze amongst Ayudhaya teenagers. They phone a certain number which is answered by a spooky woman’s voice. The teenagers believe that this voice is that of the ghost of a woman from Lopburi who was murdered in Bangkok. A rather modern ghost – the mysterious number is 09-6626840, a mobile phone. When a reporter called…
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Ghastly ghosts a fatal attraction
BANGKOK: Police believe a curve called “Krok Yai Cha” on Sukhumvit Rd in Bangkok’s Rayong Town is haunted because it has been the scene of about 50 deaths since a police traffic kiosk opened there in 1995. Bodies of victims are usually placed outside the kiosk. It’s an unpopular posting and officers who spend time there talk of hair-raising experiences…
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Villagers bet on hobbling goblin
NAN: Villagers of Thung Chang flocked to the home of Thong Chanthawong in search of lucky lottery numbers after some mysterious footprints, believed to have been left behind by a supernatural being, were found on the stairs leading up to his house. On each step was one left-foot print, bewildering Thong and his wife, Phan, because they didn’t know of…
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Game over for molesting monk
NONG BUA LAMPU: Police arrested a monk who promptly confessed to molesting two boys, aged 12 and 14, after promising the boys’ parents that he would reveal to them the last three numbers in the national lottery. The monk, Phra Sa-ngiam, had stayed in one of the temples in the village and was acquainted with the boys’ parents. Having heard…
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Invaders leave stinky calling card
NAKHON NAYOK: Prachum Vichathong and his wife, Thongbai, suffered more than the loss of belongings when home invaders struck on the night of May 16. Prachum told police that the gangsters used a drill to let themselves in through the back door. They then cut the phone line, grabbed Prachum and Thongbai, tied them up and beat them to force…
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Something smuggled, something new”¦
BANGKOK: Customs agents were scratching their heads today over what should be done with a contraband cargo seized from a Taiwanese smuggler. The illegal shipment, worth about 10 million baht, was intercepted at Bangkok Port yesterday and the Taiwanese man was arrested, the Customs Department said. The haul, smuggled in from Singapore, included nine Mercedes-Benz cars and 300 white wedding…
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Late lamented delivers a bit of a shock
MUKDAHAN: Seventy-two-year-old Wan Sukhampa had been ill with lung problems for five years. On December 8, she felt particularly unwell, so her family took her to the hospital. The following morning her condition deteriorated and she was moved to the intensive care unit. The doctors were unable to help her, however, and within hours she was declared dead. Later that…
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Dr Thim’s dream ends with sting in tail
RANONG: Noodle vendor Sajee “Thim” Klong-nguern, 31, had been suffering unusual aches and pains. That was until, one night, she says, an angel came to her in a dream. The angel told her that if she ate a pig’s tail that had been boiled in palm sugar for 15 minutes, all her aches and pains would vanish. The next day,…
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Dog’s death was the last straw
SURAT THANI: On December 2, Preecha Nachom, 47, was found dead on the bathroom floor of the home he shared with his wife. He had been shot in the head, an apparent suicide. His wife, Rungtitha, told police that Preecha, a temporary worker at the power plant, was a heavy drinker and had come home that evening complaining about his…
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Fowl play suspected
KALASIN: Porn Yeejuan knew she was a good cook and had spent the day busily preparing for her daughter’s engagement party, to which the whole village had been invited. Among the range of delicacies she had prepared for her guests was boiled chicken. Once she had finished preparing all the food, she left it in the kitchen at the back…
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An explosive relationship
CHIANG MAI: Sixty-year-old Katsuo Buno met and fell in love with 32-year-old Jitra Chuwong two years ago when Jitra went to work in Japan. Deciding that she was the love of his life, he quit his job, sold his belongings, cashed in his pension and moved to Chiang Mai so that he could be with his goddess. But Jitra, apparently…
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Perils of porcine passion
TRANG: Jamroen Jandee of Huay Yod died an untimely and unseemly death, all because he dared to interrupt two pigs in the throes of passion. Jamroen had brought his male pig to his neighbor’s so that it could mate with a female pig there. After letting the porkers go at it for what he felt was sufficient time, Jamroen went…
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Grave problems for market
RAYONG: Vichai Eaksuk reckoned he was in luck. He’d found a place to hold a small fair for the last two weeks in November. A man called Anek was willing to rent out the area in front of 14 bungalows he managed. What Anek didn’t mention was that villagers believed bungalow No 5 was haunted. So, Vichai set up his…
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Policeman has the ripe stuff
NONGKHAI: Pol Col Chalong Parkpinyo, Superintendent of Phonphisai Police Station, found his way to the hearts of the people of Phonphisai – by going bananas. Wanting to make his police station a “place for the people”, Col Chalong started several projects to improve the station’s appearance and reputation. But the project that most impressed people was an unrelenting series of…
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Pinning his hopes on golden implants
Ratchaburi: Like many people, 67-year-old Preecha Iamkum puts faith in a supernatural power to protect him from harm. What makes Preecha different is the way he invokes this protection: by having three-centimeter-long gold pins fully inserted into his body. Preecha first places the custom-made pins, which are made of an 80% gold alloy, in a bowl of sesame oil and…
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