Pattaya transwoman arrested for stealing 300,000 baht gold necklace from Swiss man

Mueang Pattaya Police Station officers yesterday arrested a Thai transwoman for stealing a gold necklace worth about 300,000 baht from a Swiss man.

The Swiss victim, 60 year old Phillippe Bocion, reported to Mueang Pattaya Police Station officers at 1.30am on Saturday, January 20 that a Thai transwoman stole his gold necklace. Bocion said the transwoman approached and sexually harassed him by hugging him around the neck.

Bocion said he pushed her away and later discovered that his gold necklace, weighing about 151 grammes and worth about 300,000 baht, disappeared. He was certain the thief was the Thai transwoman who harassed him and sought help from officers.

Officers identified the thief as 28 year old Sunthorn Huajaiphet and arrested the woman in front of her condominium, Centric Sea Pattaya on Pattaya Sai Song Road, yesterday, January 21. Sunthorn admitted to the crime and confessed that she sold the stolen gold necklaces so she could buy many other gold accessories.

Officers seized accessories Sunthorn bought with the sale of the stolen necklace including a gold necklace worth 68,000 baht, two gold bracelets worth 102,000 baht, a bracelet with a gold lion pendant worth 35,000 baht, and 20,000 baht in cash.

Sunthorn was charged under Section 335 of the Criminal Law: committing theft at night time. The penalty is imprisonment from one to five years and a fine from 20,000 to 100,000 baht.

The transwoman’s tactic is similar to another gold necklace theft reported in March of 2022. In that case, a Thai transwoman pretended to hug a Western man as he walked along the footpath on Sukhumvit Road in the Asoke neighbourhood of Bangkok.

The theft occurred while the foreign victim was taking a selfie video of himself and the identity of the thief was revealed in the video. Thai police spent a week searching for the transwoman and eventually arrested her in Samut Prakarn province near Bangkok.

Another gold thief, a Cambodian woman, was arrested in March last year after using the same tactic to steal a 30,000 baht gold necklace from a Singaporean man in Bangkok.

There is no shortage of transwomen and ladyboy gold necklace thefts in Thailand. It’s almost a weekly occurrence.