Thai woman offers 2,000 baht reward for thief’s surrender after police inaction

A Thai woman is searching alone for a thief and offering a reward of 2,000 baht if the thief surrenders to her after officers at Bangpho Police Station ignored her case and delayed the investigation processes.

The victim, Parichat, lost her wallet to a male thief on December 17 and reported the theft to Bangpho Police Station on the same day. However, the police did not accept her complaint and asked her to find evidence of the theft.

Parichat followed all the police instructions, but ten days later she was still unable to file a complaint. So, she posted a picture of the male thief on her Facebook account yesterday, December 27, with a caption that reads…

“Thief, please contact me. I am willing to give you 2,000 baht. I am tired of contacting the police. Please return my wallet. Talking to the police is much harder and more tiring than looking for the thief. Let’s return the wallet so you can get more money and avoid a criminal record.”

Parichat explained to her followers what she had done to find the thief. She asked the police for a document to access the CCTV footage from the scene on December 17 and gave the footage to the police. She also asked for more CCTV footage from nearby locations, which she handed over to the police on December 18.

Parichat received a notification from an e-money service provider that her card was used to pay for a product on December 19. She rushed to the location to retrieve the CCTV footage and gave it to the officers.

Parichat also tried to identify the company the thief worked for from the uniform he wore during the crime, but was unsuccessful.

Case develops after online criticism

Officers contacted Parichat on December 25 and asked her about the progress of the case. Parichat said she was confused because she was the one who should be asking questions, not the officers. The police then asked her to visit the police station on December 26 to file a complaint.

Unfortunately, Parichat was still unable to file a complaint on December 26 because the officer who recorded the complaint was not at the police station, and no one could contact him.

Parichat said she visited the police station four times, talked to seven police officers, and provided all the evidence the police needed, but she still could not get any help from officers. She urged the thief to surrender to her instead and promised to drop all charges against him.

After her story went viral on social media, Parichat updated that the police contacted her, and she finally and successfully filed a complaint with the police on December 27 at 8pm.

Parichat had not yet updated whether or not the officers successfully arrested the thief. However, netizens agreed that the arrest should not take long as the thief’s face was clear in Parichat’s post.