Man gets back his best friend, a buffalo, amid legal wrangling

By The Nation

 

 

Despite pending legal trouble, a man and his best friend, a buffalo, are enjoying a reunion of sorts.

 

Surat Paewkate, a 34-year-old worker in Chai Nat province, on Sunday was seen playing with three buffaloes, including “Thong Kham” which had brought him into the limelight on the Internet and then landed him in legal trouble. 

 

“I am so happy that we are now back together,” Surat said, “I missed him every single day when we were apart.”

 

Many locals gathered around Surat and his buffalo friends to express moral support.

 

Hired to take care of these buffaloes since early November, Surat has become particularly fond of Thong Kham. 

 

Often, he has posted pictures of himself with Thong Kham on the Internet, which got numerous “Likes” and made him famous. 

 

While enjoying the limelight, Surat started a crowd-funding campaign inviting netizens to donate money for his dream to take ownership of Thong Kham. 

 

The campaign attracted more than Bt100,000 in donations, but it also promoted Thong Kham’s owner, the mayor of Tambon Suk Duan Ha municipality Boonlert Kadpakdee, to take legal action against Surat. 

 

Boonlert accused Surat of several charges related to the fund-raising, explaining that he had never offered to sell Thong Kham. 

Last week, police confiscated the money raised by the campaign and took away Thong Kham.

 

After negotiations, Surat was allowed to take Thong Kham under his care while the legal case against him proceeded. 

 

“We can’t keep Thong Kham at the police station. So, we asked if Boonlert would agree to let Surat take custody of the animal. He has not objected,” Khan Na Yow Police Station superintendent Pol Colonel Sing Singdej said.

 

He said Boonlert did not complain because a donor had given him Bt100,000 to cover the cost of Thong Kham, if he would really hand it over to Surat.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30359703

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-12-03

underlying  story "how can  we split this 100k "

So in other words the greedy previous owner wanted more money.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

If the police want the money, why don't they start their own crowdfunding? ................Oh, I forgot..................they already do.

Wait, so this guy got paid 100k for a buffalo... caused a row... and someone just paid him a second 100k??  He must be laughing all the way to the bank!

 

Or did he not take the money from Surat?

 

And now the story is "I never said I'd sell" instead of "I changed my mind" (at least, I think that's what it was before, right?). 

 

What a circus.

I imagine the bib were fed up wading through buffalo poo in their back yard.

I think the original owner and the police are realising the extent of their mistake, and are slowly backing away in an attempt to not lose even more 'face'.  Fingers crossed.

I wonder if he'll crowd fund for a hotel room... or barn!!

This is getting more sickening by the day!!

8 hours ago, webfact said:

We can’t keep Thong Kham at the police station

" as he sh*t's everywhere " added Col' ..

46 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

I wonder if he'll crowd fund for a hotel room... or barn!!

This is getting more sickening by the day!!

What are you going on about?

 

A small farmer paid for a buffalo that he had come to love.  The rich mayor accepted the money, but decided to make ridiculous allegations to the police when he discovered that the poor farmer and buffalo were becoming 'famous' in a small way.

 

For some obscure (????) reason, the police decided to act on these allegations - not realising that it would result in even more attention - and not sympathetic to either the mayor or the police involved!

 

They've finally realised that they're losing even more face - and so have given the buffalo back to the small farmer, and are slowly backing away from the 'case'.