Man wanted for B2m gold shop heist surrenders to police

A Pattaya hotel employee wanted for a 2-million-baht robbery of a gold shop in Sattahip district of Chon Buri on Sunday has surrendered to police in Phachi district of Ayutthaya.

Sornchai Ninsonthi, 34, a native of Phichit’s Wachira Banrami district, contacted Phachi police station early on Tuesday saying he wanted to turn himself in. 

He was under mounting pressure, with police searching intensively for him in his home province and nowhere safe to hide.  

The robbery occurred at the Supatra Yaowarat gold shop in the Big C department store mall in Sattahip district on Sunday morning. 

Surveillance camera footage from the shop showed a man, 160-170cm tall and wearing a black shirt with long sleeves, jeans and a military camouflage hat, walking into the shop about 10.15am. The man forced a shop employee at gunpoint to put gold ornaments into a plastic bag. He made off with 109 baht weight of gold worth about 2.12 million baht. 

Police investigators identified the robber as a hotel employee in Pattaya who was in dire need of money to pay off his debts.

The gold shop is owned by Sathira Phuakprapun, the unofficial winning candidate from the Palang Pracharath Party in constituency 8 of Chon Buri, Thai media reported.

The suspect was returned to Chon Buri and taken for a crime re-enactment at the Big C superstore mall in Sattahip on Tuesday morning.

Thairath Online reported that the suspect had cached the stolen gold at his girlfriend’s house in Bang Lamung district of Chon Buri. Police retrieved all of it.