A French tourist suffered a neck injury during a gold necklace snatching on Bangla Road in Phuket yesterday, April 9, but managed to recover the jewellery from the foreign thief.
Phuket Times Facebook page reported that the incident took place at about 4am while the tourist was walking on Bangla Road with two friends. A Thai friend recorded video showing his neck injury and the damaged necklace, then shared the footage with local media.
The Frenchman said it was his first visit to Phuket. He explained that he and his friends were walking along the road after leaving an entertainment venue when a foreign woman approached and snatched his gold necklace. He said he could not identify the woman’s nationality.
Although caught off guard, he managed to grab the necklace back from her. After the failed theft, the foreign woman ran from the scene and disappeared into the crowd on the road.
The video showed red, swollen scratches on the tourist’s neck. Fortunately, he suffered only minor injuries in the incident.
Media reports did not confirm whether the case had been reported to police. Some Thai social media users called on police to investigate the Bangla Road necklace snatching and criticised screening measures for foreign visitors.
A similar case was reported in Pattaya on the same day. In this case, two foreign men stole a gold ring and cash from a Chinese tourist after tricking her into showing her money to distract her before the theft. Another Chinese tourist and Russian nationals previously fell victim to this showing money trick last year.
In another case last month, four Thai suspects tried to steal a gold necklace worth nearly 100,000 baht from an Indian man. A hotel security guard and witnesses helped recover the necklace, although it was damaged during the incident.
The story French tourist injured in gold necklace snatching in Phuket as seen on Thaiger News.
