High school student robs Bangkok gold shop at knifepoint - she's soon captured and online gambling suspected

[webfact]

Picture: Daily News

 

Daily News reported on the case of a Mor 6 (end of secondary school) female student who robbed a gold shop at knifepoint.

 

She was soon arrested after the incident at Big C on Ratanathibet Road in the north western Bangkok/Nonthaburi area.

 

She had stolen 43 gold chains weighing 30 baht - this would be worth about 860,000 baht at today's values notes ASEAN NOW.

 

She told police she lost 50,000 baht in an online investment.

 

The media speculated along with netizens that this could mean only one thing - the lure of online gambling. 

 

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[toofarnorth]

What sad times eh when a school girl feels she has to rob a gold shop .

[DaLa]

I had just walked down the travelator from the supermarket upstairs when I witnessed this. The Thais don't need an alarm, just 3 or 4 of them screaming at about 130dB, then 3 or 4 other shop owners took chase and a policeman in the eating area took her down.  

 

If this had been the UK it would have taken the police hours to turn up and then another 2 hours to take a statement all to no avail.  The police take a lot of flak here, but  being heavy in  numbers floating around does  pay dividends in incidents such as this.

[matchar]

1 hour ago, DaLa said:

I had just walked down the travelator from the supermarket upstairs when I witnessed this. The Thais don't need an alarm, just 3 or 4 of them screaming at about 130dB, then 3 or 4 other shop owners took chase and a policeman in the eating area took her down.  

 

If this had been the UK it would have taken the police hours to turn up and then another 2 hours to take a statement all to no avail.  The police take a lot of flak here, but  being heavy in  numbers floating around does  pay dividends in incidents such as this.

Well in this case it was just a poor school girl and I hope she gets the help she needs rather than face the wrath of the Thai criminal justice system. Would they have been so eager to intervene if it was a psycho with a gun shooting at will?

[Tropicalevo]

2 hours ago, matchar said:

Well in this case it was just a poor school girl and I hope she gets the help she needs rather than face the wrath of the Thai criminal justice system. Would they have been so eager to intervene if it was a psycho with a gun shooting at will?

Yes. Sad for lass to be in that predicament.

And what happened to the policeman that robbed a gold shop last week?

[Tropicalevo]

4 hours ago, DaLa said:

a policeman in the eating area took her down.  

 

If this had been the UK it would have taken the police hours to turn up and then another 2 hours to take a statement all to no avail. 

I suspect that if it happened in the UK and there was a policeman in the eating area, then he too would have intervened.

[hotchilli]

Desperation for some, owing money for a gambling debt, but where did she get or borrow the money to lose the 50,000, or was that online credit too?

[rbkk]

Another successful Hub. 

 

• Despite its population of only 70 million, Thailand ranks sixth in the world in prison population.^[6]

• Thailand's female incarceration rate is the world's highest at 66.4 female convicts per 100,000 inhabitants.^[7][8]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Corrections_(Thailand)}

[sanuk711]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

The media speculated along with netizens that this could mean only one thing - the lure of online gambling. 

They let you run into debt in Online Gambling ??................. I have a friend who is leaving Thailand soon,

 

he would interested about that.......................

[Bangel72]

Often its not a gambling debt but either a loanshark or friend debt that they cannot afford to pay so they then turn to gambling as potential way out.  It sounds stupid but its very common, often combined with a potentially proneness to get a gambling addiction.

 

There does not seem to be a lot of help out there for people with these informal debt problems, many lack trust in the police so they cannot go there when the debts become overbearing.

 

Running, suicide, being shipped off to pay your debt or turn to crime do seem to be happening more than the actually getting help scenario.

 

There are also a lot of online scams at the moment offering ludicrous daily interest, easy money temptation overrules common sense generally ends in tears.

[katana]

CCTV of the robbery and arrest. She would have got away with it if someone hadn't stuck their foot out!

 

[MrJ2U]

7 hours ago, Tropicalevo said:

Yes. Sad for lass to be in that predicament.

And what happened to the policeman that robbed a gold shop last week?

He got detention.

[Stargeezr]

Gambling is horrible, and when a person gets into too much debt, sometimes it costs them their lives.

  I knew a Thai fellow in Phuket, whos wife gambled away their savings, and even stole his mothers savings. Then she borrowed 

from the local mafia, and one day she ran away to  the north of Thailand.

  No one ever heard from her again, and many years later I heard that a mafia member spotted

her in the north and she basically disappeared  for good.

  Robbing a gold shop was pretty foolish.

Geezer

[DaLa]

15 hours ago, katana said:

CCTV of the robbery and arrest. She would have got away with it if someone hadn't stuck their foot out!

 

I stand corrected, it wasn't the policeman but someone eating. I was a few yards further back and the policeman was the next person to approach her and pin her down. 

[matchar]

Even if she had got away they would have easily tracked her down, seems like she was even wearing her school uniform.

There was an update in the unmentionable newspaper that the 50,000 was her father's life insurance payout and she was tricked into investing it in an Instagram scam. Apparently she has been granted bail and the 15,000 bond was paid by the director of her school. Let's hope she gets some counseling and a suspended sentence at worst.