Northern Thailand News
Northern Thailand news, Chiang Mai news, business, tourism, and culture—stay updated with breaking stories, local events, and travel insights from Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Pai, and beyond. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Northern Thailand news source.
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Sponsored 5 ways retirees in Thailand lose money (and how to stop it)
Retiring in Thailand can be affordable and enjoyable, but many retirees lose money due to common mistakes. High living costs, scams, and unexpected expenses can quickly drain savings. There are five ways that retirees in Thailand can lose money and...
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Girl in northeast Thailand rides elephant to save fuel costs, goes viral
Elephant crossing! An 11 year old girl in northeast Thailand’s Buriram province has become a TikTok sensation from riding an elephant to school to help her family save cash on fuel. The girl’s father, Wisanchol, told reporters that he works with elephants and that his family owns four of the gentle giants. The elephant that his daughter, Pupae, was filmed…
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Police keep open mind on Thai man found dead in water tank with cut throat
Police reported they were keeping an open mind to whether a local man was murdered or committed suicide after a body with a cut throat was found floating in a water tank at a house in the Isaan province of Roi Et. The body of the dead man, believed to be 51 year old Chaiyut Pakakatet, was fished out of…
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‘It’s God’s Will’ says Thai gunman after Chiang Rai mass shooting
A drug-crazed killer gunned down three locals, including a 4 year old girl, and injured two in a mass shooting in the Baan Pa Kia Community in the northern province of Chiang Rai yesterday. Several cats and dogs were also killed in the crossfire. The drunken gunman told the police, “It’s God’s will.” The murderer, reportedly called Anucha Jabo, high…
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Mother & daughter rescued from drowning at Khon Kaen Airport
A mother and daughter were rescued after accidentally driving a car into a flooded underground car park at Khon Kaen Airport in Isaan province of Thailand. A Facebook page, พระจันทร์ ลายกระต่าย V2 (The Rabbit on the Moon V2) posted pictures of a white sedan dripping in water with the caption, “Khon Kaen Airport.” The page didn’t explain the details of…
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Petrified tree in Tak certified as Guinness World Record largest
Ah, Thailand: famous for its tropical beaches, delicious food, wild nightlife, and… giant wood? Thailand recently gained a Guinness World Record after unearthing the longest petrified tree trunk log ever found anywhere in the world. The world record was verified on Friday in Tak, a Northern province of Thailand lying on the Burmese border. The gigantic fossilised log was measured…
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Thai man appeals to robbers to stop as he has nothing left
A Thai man today appealed to thieves to stop robbing him after declaring he has nothing left to steal. Niphon Muangkram’s home in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen has been robbed 6 times in 3 months with 40,000 baht of valuables taken. One of the ironies of all this is that his home is only 1 kilometre away from…
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Fight leads to fatal shooting in Northeast Thailand
A fight at a liquor store in Northeast Thailand led to a fatal shooting this morning. Two gang members of an illegal money lending gang had gotten into a feud with some young locals in Nakhon Phanom province. The spat occurred in the That Phanom district town. The fight left gang member 33 year old Pittaya with head injuries, among…
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Chiang Rai police arrested for taking huge bribe from Chinese porn gang
Another day, another story involving Thai police taking bribes, this time in Chiang Rai. According to deputy police commissioner Surachate Hakpan, a.k.a ‘Big Joke,’ 4 officers in the northern province took a 1 million baht bribe from a Chinese gang filming live pornography at 2 resorts. One of the officers had searched the gang’s filming spot on March 31. He…
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60% of new HIV cases in a northern Thai province are from high school students
Healthcare workers from the northern province of Phitsanulok claim they discover 2 HIV cases every hour, and that 60% of HIV cases in that area are found in high school students. The statement was made yesterday at a healthcare meeting to discuss the silent danger of HIV at the Crystal Conference Room of The Park Hotel, Phitsanulok. The conference was…
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Northeast Thailand teacher’s ex stabs her to death in classroom
The ex-husband of a Northeast Thailand teacher has stabbed her to death today in a classroom of the school where she taught. The ex-husband, ‘Bo’, had reportedly threatened to kill his ex-wife 3 days ago. The couple split up after she caught him cheating. Today, Bo drove up to the school in Surin province and asked a security guard where…
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Former Thai public servant allegedly swindles 30.6 million baht from government
A former Ministry of Defence finance officer, with an online gambling addiction, has allegedly swindled 30.6 million baht from the Buntharik District Administration in the Isaan province of Ubon Ratchathani and is on the run from the police. The Mayor of the Buntharik District Administration, Worrapoj Bootnart, yesterday informed the media that the district office last year hired a financial…
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UPDATE #2: Lithuanian man allegedly murders trans woman in northeast Thailand
UPDATE #2: Police have caught and arrested the man suspected of murdering a trans woman in Surin 3 weeks ago. Police revealed that the 32 year old man, Malleus Kunickas, is in fact of Lithuanian nationality, and not Russian as thought by the deceased’s family and widely reported in Thai media. Wandee, the deceased’s mother, previously said her daughter’s phone…
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Woman gets justice after washing her laundry in public
A woman’s appeal for justice through social media has been successful after she was beaten by a member of the local authority in the La Haan Sai district of the Isaan province of Buriram. Wichuda told the media that she was assaulted by a member of Buriram’s Subdistrict Administrative Organization because she complained about the plumbing. The 27 year old…
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Thai OnlyFans couple who turned holiday resort into a porn shoot wanted by police
Police are looking for a Thai OnlyFans couple who turned the popular holiday resort of Wang Nam Khiao into a porn shoot setting. Three of the couple’s sex tapes were circulated online yesterday in secret group chats in the popular Thai Line application. The videos, which soon went viral, feature the couple having sex in a resort room with a…
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Man changes surname to “Ganjaram” to celebrate cannabis decriminalisation
A Thai man in the Isaan province of Buriram has changed his surname to “Ganjaram” to celebrate the decriminalisation of cannabis in Thailand. He says his pregnant wife had already checked the surname’s meaning and found it had a good essence, and added his newborn baby, expected to born on June 22, will be proud of him. On Friday, one…
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Mae Sot district proposed as site of Thailand’s 1st official casino
An Entertainment Complex Committee, set up by the government, has proposed Mae Sot district in the northern province of Tak as an ideal location for Thailand’s first legal entertainment complex, with a casino. The committee has announced that they’ve gathered all information from their survey, both negative and positive, and is ready to submit the findings to the Thai cabinet.…
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Northeast Thai man shoots and kills ex-wife, and himself, after she refuses to re-unite
A man in Northeast Thailand has shot and killed his ex-wife after she refused to go back to him. The man, 35 year old soldier Akkhaphon Phonphan, shot his ex-wife, 34 year old nurse Naphaporn Nakkiew, at Khon Kaen Hospital in the early hours of this morning, before turning the gun on himself. According to Khon Kaen city police, Naphaporn’s…
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Former police inspector in North Thailand scammed, loses retirement funds
A scam gang, pretending to be police, have tricked a former police inspector in North Thailand into handing over all of his retirement money, totalling 1.8 million baht. The former inspector, who lives in Lampang province, said the scammers called him on June 1, claiming to be from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission. The scammers told the former inspector…
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Restaurant feels heat from police after expanding business into bus stop
A restaurant was left with a sour taste in its mouth after being warned about expanding its business into a nearby bus stop. Local police officials were notified by a Facebook blogger, ขาเกือบพลิก, who complained that a restaurant in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen had taken over a bus stop and was serving food to customers. The Facebook page,…
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Police investigate blast in Northeast Thailand that killed lecturer
Police in Northeast Thailand are investigating a blast that tragically killed a university lecturer in Sakhon Nakhon province’s city district on Friday. Police say the lecturer, 41 year old Pichai Srimanta, was killed when doing a research project to extract oil from plastic waste at a garbage dump, where the explosion happened. A worker who witnessed the tragedy said the extraction…
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Soldiers in Chiang Rai shoot and kill 8 drug suspects who reportedly opened fire
Soldiers in Thailand’s northern province of Chiang Rai have shot and killed 8 suspects who reportedly opened fire on them along the Thai-Burmese border last night. The soldiers had been warned that a gang would try to smuggle drugs from Myanmar, according to Thai media. They then went to patrol the border area in Mae Fa Luang district. Later, they…
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Gambling suspects arrested at northeast Thailand resort
Police arrested 18 gambling suspects at a resort in Thailand’s northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima yesterday. The suspects reportedly used all 10 rooms of the Lake Pine resort to operate 2 gambling websites. Officers seized 10 desktop computers, 5 notebook computers, 30 mobile phones, and 12 bank account books, according to Police Colonel Wiwat Jitsophakul from the Crime Suppression Division.…
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Murder-suicide in north east Thailand
A man has shot his pregnant stepdaughter dead and then committed suicide at a house in the northeastern province of Buriram. The stepdaughter had just married her husband 7 days before the incident. Relatives have refused to provide additional details to the media at this stage. Yesterday, an emergency team from Hin Lek Fire Police Station was called to a…
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Thai cult’s food products tested – feces, bacteria and mould detected
An update on the hidden cult commune in the Isaan province of Chaiyaphum… Local health authorities found the cult was operating a food businesses and seized all of the products for further investigation. The test results showed that the food samples from the group contained excessive amounts of mould, Coliform and bacteria, usually found in feces. At the start of…
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Man in northeast Thailand stabs wife on train
A man in northeast Thailand stabbed his wife on a train yesterday, after suspecting she was romantically involved with another man. Police said the woman, 31 year old Ratchanok Yimsa-ngob, had decided to go and live with her grandmother in a different district of Nakhon Ratchasima, and the couple was headed there on the train. Along the trip, Ratchanok and…
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Thai Bitcoin miner arrested for tapping into free electricity for 6 months
A Thai man in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima has been arrested after being caught using free electricity for the past 6 months. He was Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining consumes roughly 0.5% of all energy consumption worldwide. That’s roughly 7 times more than Google’s total energy consumption per year – Business Insider The officer from Nakhon Ratchasima’s Provincial Electricity Authority,…
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Stolen gold found scattered in northern Thailand
After a robber stole several pricy items from a gold shop earlier this week, police found 7 trays of gold ornaments in the middle of a river in northern Thailand’s Tak province. Local people showed the gold to police after they spotted it on an islet in the middle of Ping River in the main city district. The locals also…
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Health and safety a priority as kids return to Bangkok schools after two turbulent years
The Thailand Ministry of Education yesterday allowed schools to reopen their doors for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the nation in 2020 in line with the government’s transition to living with Covid as an endemic disease. Some children celebrated their return to school in style in Tak province, northern Thailand, taxied in by elephants, as reported in…
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6 million baht worth of gold stolen in Northern Thailand
Police are on the lookout for an armed robber who fled the crime scene with nearly 6 million baht worth of gold from a Big C Supermarket in Tak, Northern Thailand, on Sunday. The robber burst into the popular superstore, withdrew a handgun, demanded cash and several trays of gold jewelry, before making his escape on a white Yamaha motorbike…
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Chiang Rai businessman gives away cash with a mini treasure hunt
A man in the northern province of Chiang Rai has been giving away money to locals in a make-shift mini treasure hunt. He’s posted videos on TikTok to show people where he has hidden the money, allowing locals to figure out the clues and find the money. He told Thai media that he wanted to help people and encourage tourists…
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