Phuket car thief hears “God’, surrenders to police

PHUKET: Overwhelmed by a guilty conscience, a woman with 14 outstanding arrest warrants for car theft surrendered herself to Phuket Police yesterday.

The woman, 32-year-old Cherry Piwsa-ard (whose name translates as “Cherry Clean-skin”) told officers at Patong Police Station last night that “God” had appeared to her in a dream and ordered her to surrender herself to authorities.

Police Duty Officer Rattaket Manmuang say Miss Cherry told officers she was a native of Ayutthaya province who formerly enjoyed a life of luxury as the wife of a well-to-do foreigner.

“I had invested in a business with friends and spent millions of my husband’s money, but I was cheated by my friends. So he broke up with me. That was my fault,” he quoted Miss Cherry as saying.

Overwhelmed by personal debt, Miss Cherry became involved with an acquaintance who ran a racket stealing cars and selling them in the southern border provinces.

Her first theft was of a Honda Jazz that she rented out for a few days at 1,000 baht per day, then sold for 60,000 baht, she said.

Her string of thefts continued until she had stolen 13 more cars.

She was paid 60,000 baht for a typical compact car, and up to 100,000 baht for a Toyota Fortuner, she said.

Part of the money was used to pay off debt because she was afraid of her creditors, she said.

“I have been unable to sleep well lately because I have done wrong to so many people. Then God visited me in my dreams last night,” police quoted her as saying.

“If I could somehow pay back the owners of the cars I stole, I would do it,” she said.

Miss Cherry had 14 outstanding arrest warrants for auto theft when she turned herself in, police say.