BANGKOK: Police arrested two Thai men and are searching for two others after a Chinese woman allegedly abducted from Bangkok escaped from their car during a police pursuit in Kamphaeng Phet on Sunday (Aug 23) night.
The incident began at about 9pm on Aug 23, when a black Bangkok-registered Nissan Teana carrying the woman drove through a checkpoint outside the Chula police box in central Kamphaeng Phet.
Police said the woman’s hands had been bound with cable ties and that the group appeared to be taking her towards Mae Sot district in Tak, near the border.
She was taken to Kamphaeng Phet Hospital for treatment and a medical examination before Tourist Police officers and a Chinese-language interpreter accompanied her to Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station to give a statement.
Police identified the two arrested suspects as Somkiat Thakaeo, 41, and Kittiporn Winya, 24, both from Mae Sot district.
The woman told investigators that she was travelling to Singapore and had stopped in Thailand as a tourist.
After arriving at the airport, she checked into a hotel in Bangkok and communicated by telephone with a person she believed was a tour guide. She said she had never met the person and had spoken to them only by phone.
On Sunday, a sedan arrived to collect her from the hotel. Shortly after leaving, the car stopped nearby to pick up another three men.
The woman said she then realised she had been deceived and attempted to resist and leave the vehicle.
According to her statement, the men took her telephone, restrained her hands with cable ties and struck her in the mouth with an elbow, causing an injury.
When the vehicle later approached a police checkpoint in Kamphaeng Phet, she saw an opportunity to seek help and shouted to the officers.
The driver then accelerated through the checkpoint. During the ensuing pursuit, the woman said she used all her strength to open a door and escape from the moving car.
Initial accounts said the suspects had pushed or abandoned her from the vehicle on Ratchadamnoen Road, near an optical shop in Nai Mueang subdistrict. In her subsequent statement, however, the woman said she had opened the door and escaped herself.
She ran to a salon near a traffic-light junction and knocked on the door for help. Members of the public and police officers then assisted her and arranged for her to be taken to hospital.
Pol Col Somkasem Charak, superintendent of Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station, ordered patrol officers to pursue and intercept the sedan after it drove through the checkpoint.
Police followed the vehicle towards Lan Dokmai subdistrict, where officers fired at one of its tyres, according to Pol Maj Chakkaphet Khrueacha, an inspector at the station.
The damaged tyre brought the vehicle to a halt. The four men then abandoned the car and fled into woodland beside the road.
Officers captured Somkiat and Kittiporn shortly afterwards, while the other two men escaped.
Police said one of the fugitives had been identified, while investigators were still working to establish the identity of the other and locate both men.
Pol Lt Col Suwich Phit-on, deputy superintendent of Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station and the officer overseeing the case, said investigators were questioning the two arrested men to identify any wider network involved.
Kittiporn, who police said was driving the car, claimed that Somkiat had hired him for 10,000 baht to collect the Chinese woman from the Bangkok hotel.
He told investigators that after the woman entered the vehicle, he drove a short distance before stopping to collect Somkiat and two other men.
Kittiporn alleged that the two men sitting in the back seized the woman’s telephone and tied her hands.
He claimed that he asked what they were doing but was told not to become involved and to continue driving.
The vehicle continued towards Kamphaeng Phet, where it encountered the police checkpoint and the woman shouted for help, leading to the pursuit and arrests.
Investigators were continuing to question the two suspects, examine possible links to other people and search for the two men who remain at large. - The Nation/ANN
