Police capture man suspected of Khon Kaen gold store robbery
A suspect has been arrested in the case of an armed gold store robbery in Khon Kaen with CCTV footage that had gone viral. The robbery took place on Saturday evening, and the police announced a suspect taken into custody earlier today.
The robbery of the gold store on the second floor of the Central Plaza Department Store in Khon Kaen had police searching for a masked man who fired a warning shot into the ceiling before jumping over the counter and grabbing a fistful of gold necklaces and fleeing the store.
Police had expanded the original investigation and announced they had identified a suspect in the robbery who had reportedly fled to Pathum Thani province in central Thailand. Though his name was not released publicly, police were able to track down the man on the run and have brought him back to the northern province of Khon Kaen for questioning.
Police say he allegedly confessed to the crime, saying he needed the money to pay for online gambling debt and that he bought a gun online that he used in the robbery. The Khon Kaen Provincial Police had offered a reward of up to 50,000 baht for any information that lead to an arrest, but there was no word released on whether any tipoff or lead had been provided by anyone who could claim the reward.
CCTV footage went viral in part due to the man being dressed in a white T-shirt that says, “Why So Serious” with a black hood covering his face. But more striking in the footage is that he wandered into the gold store which was so busy that none of the customers or staff seemed to even notice the masked man enter with a gun intending to rob the place. It wasn’t until he fired a single shot at the ceiling that everyone became aware of him and scrambled to flee.
SOURCE: The Pattaya News
