Dial S for stolen

PHUKET AIRPORT: Following the arrest of two baggage handlers for stealing a mobile phone from luggage at Phuket International Airport, police are urging airline passengers not to pack valuables in checked-in luggage.

At a press conference last night, Tah Chat Chai Police Superintendent Col Sakchai Limchareon said that Sarawuth Saowarun, 21, of Nakhon Sri Thammarat, and Chiang Rai native Surakrai Sirisor, 22, had both been charged with the theft of the phone.

Both suspects were recently employed by Standard Services Co Ltd, which provides baggage-handling services to THAI Airways under a service contract.

The phone was stolen from a passenger’s bag bound for Bangkok from Phuket on THAI Airways flight TG224 on May 5 while the flight was delayed, police said.

Surakrai’s girlfriend, a minor who sold the device in Nakhon Sri Thammarat for 2,000 baht, has been charged with receiving stolen property, the press were told.

Police tracked down the thieves because Sarawuth had transferred call credits from the stolen phone to his own phone before giving it to his girlfriend.

The owner of the stolen phone, a Motorola, was not named by police.