Nut job nabbed! Coconut crook caught hiding in cassava patch
Villager caught red-handed after pinching fruit to feed sick wife
A coconut crook has been busted in a cassava field after being caught red-handed stealing fruit from a plantation in Chon Buri.
Thanakorn Noondee was nabbed yesterday, July 22, at 4.36pm by 30 year old eagle-eyed village headman Phattharaphon Phiwanoi, and his trusty 48 year old sidekick Phaisan Srimanee, after days of coconut disappearances left locals stumped.
The 39 year old sticky-fingered suspect had stashed more than 20 coconuts in fertiliser sacks hidden among the cassava near the trees in Moo 5, Khao Mai Kaew.
Thanakorn admitted to the theft, claiming desperation drove him to it.
“I needed money to buy food for my wife, she’s suffering from HIV. I was going to husk them and sell them later.”
The coconuts belonged to 59 year old Jiraphorn Onkham, who owns the plantation nestled within the cassava field.
“They’ve been vanishing almost every day,” she said. “I’ve lost at least 200. I’m so relieved they finally caught the culprit.”
Officers from Huay Yai Police Station arrived at the scene shortly after the arrest and took Thanakorn in for further questioning. Legal action is now under way, Pattaya News reported.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s multi-billion-baht coconut industry is trying to shake off another sort of bad press, monkey labour.
In a major U-turn, top producers have pledged to ban the use of monkeys to harvest coconuts following a global backlash.
Years of international outrage, fuelled by disturbing footage of primates forced to collect coconuts, has triggered supermarket boycotts and a whopping 2 billion baht in annual export losses.
Now, the Thai Coconut Industry Group, made up of four major companies, has teamed up with the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) to put an end to the controversial practice.
The sector, worth over 25 billion baht a year and supporting 300,000 households, is desperate to clean up its image and win back customers abroad.
Campaigners have welcomed the move, calling it a long-overdue step towards ethical farming in a nation where coconuts are big business, and even bigger headlines.
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