Woman accuses police of seizing her car for personal use

A Thai woman accused officers from Sathon Police Station in the southern province of Songkhla of confiscating her car for personal use.

The unnamed woman said her car was seized by the police two years ago despite not being involved in a crime.

The woman reported that the police arrested her boyfriend in 2021 for possessing Kratom and two tablets of amphetamine and impounded the sedan for further investigation.

The car originally belonged to her boyfriend’s friend. He sold it to her for 30,000 baht but, because they were close friends, she never asked for the vehicle registration document. Therefore, the car still legally belongs to her friend.

The woman urged the police to return the vehicle because it was not involved in the case. Officers promised to return it if she could bring the real owner of the car to process the claim.

The woman couldn’t find her friend who has mysteriously disappeared.

To her surprise, she found that the police officers were using her and even changed the registration plate. The woman said she wanted an explanation from the police. She said…

“If the car is considered illegal or under investigation, the police should not use it. I have evidence that the police officer promised to return the car to me. Why has it been used several times?”

The woman has pictures and videos showing the car being driven to several places in the province by officers.

Thairath reporters visited the Sathon Police Station to verify the woman’s claims and discovered the car parked inside the police station with its registration plate removed.

Officers insisted that the car has never left the station and was never used.

Residents, however, told reporters that the car had been used just a few hours before their arrival.

The unnamed woman says there has been no conclusion to the case and her car is still impounded by the police as they fend off questions from Thai media.

Sathon Police Station has form for something similar in the past. In 2021, Sathon Police Station was under fire after 31 seized motorcycles disappeared without a trace.

Once the investigation was underway the seized motorcycles were secretly and illegally returned to their owners, who were mostly drug dealers and other criminal suspects, in exchange for money.

According to an update reported by Thairath in March last year, the case is still under investigation. The identities of the officers involved, as well as the outcome of the case, had not been revealed.