“Gold Den’ bandit back in Phuket for re-enactment

PHUKET: Phuket City Police yesterday led a recently-arrested gold shop bandit “Den” through a re-enactment of his June 2011 heist of a Phuket Town gold shop.

The suspect, Krittasak “Den” Heetkaew, was arrested at his Bangkok apartment

on Thursday and confessed to the Phuket heist and several others using the same modus operandi.

Yesterday afternoon’s re-enactment was led by Phuket City Police Superintendent Chote Chitchai, who took the 25-year-old to the Thong Thanet gold shop in the Yee Teng complex, behind the Esso service station of Chao Fa East Road.

Den immediately gave the owners of the family-run business an apologetic wai upon entering the shop, which he cleared of 6-million-baht in gold ornaments 11 months earlier.

Owner Chantana Thanetthanasombut told Phuket Gazette, “I am glad police finally caught the bandit. We lost 221 bahtweight in gold, a value of about 6 million baht. We only got 10 bahtweight returned, a value of about 200,000 baht,” she said.

Recovery of the remainder was now in the hands of the criminal justice system, Ms Chantana said.

The shop awarded the investigators who tracked down and arrested “Gold Den” 100,000 baht soon after his capture.

Col Chote told the Gazette, “He confessed he did all the robberies alone. He sold the gold, spending the money on personal items. As we could not recover [most of] the stolen gold, we could only give what remained back to the gold shop owner.”

After the re-enactment, Mr Krittasak was transferred to a cell at Phuket Court to await his arraignment hearing.

— Chutharat Plerin