Kamphaeng Phet – A Chinese woman, a victim of a human trafficking network, has revealed the moment she was tricked, abducted, and had her hands bound before being forced into a sedan from a hotel in the centre of Bangkok, with the intention of delivering her across the border at Mae Sot. Fortunately, when the car reached Kamphaeng Phet, it encountered a police checkpoint. The perpetrators sped away — but not before she fought back and was thrown out onto the road.
In this case, four Thai men abducted a young Chinese woman, bound her hands with cable ties, and forced her into a black Nissan Teana sedan bearing Bangkok licence plate Daw Chor 578, driving from a hotel in Bangkok with the intention of forcing her across the border to Mae Sot district, Tak Province.
However, along the way, the suspects dumped the victim from the moving car on Ratchadamnoen Road in front of an eyewear shop in Nai Mueang sub-district, Mueang Kamphaeng Phet district. The victim then ran to knock on the door of a hair salon near a set of traffic lights to seek help, prompting good Samaritans and police officers from Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station to assist her and take her to Kamphaeng Phet Hospital for wound treatment and a physical examination, in the early hours of the night of 23 August.
After the young Chinese victim had been examined at Kamphaeng Phet Hospital, tourist police officers and a Chinese-language interpreter received her to give a statement at Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station. She stated that she had been travelling to Singapore but had stopped to visit Thailand first.
After landing at the airport, she had checked into a hotel in Bangkok. During her stay, she had been in phone contact with a person she believed to be a tour guide — someone she had never met in person and communicated with only by phone. On the day of the incident, 23 August, a sedan came to pick her up at the hotel. She got into the car, which then drove away from the hotel and stopped to pick up three more men not far from the hotel.
At that point, she knew she had been tricked and tried to resist and get out of the car, but the men snatched her phone, together bound her hands, and elbowed her in the mouth, leaving her injured.
The sedan subsequently drove to Kamphaeng Phet Province, where the occupants saw that a police checkpoint had been set up and officers were signalling vehicles to stop for inspection. The young Chinese woman saw this as her only chance of survival and cried out for help. The driver then sped away from the checkpoint. As the suspects were fleeing, she used every ounce of her strength to try to escape from the car, managing to open the door and get out, until she received assistance.
Meanwhile, Police Lieutenant Commander Suwit Phit-on, Deputy Superintendent of Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station and the officer overseeing the case, together with the investigation unit of Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station, were in the process of questioning the arrested suspects in order to expand the investigation to uncover the network. One of the suspects, Kittiporn, who was the driver, claimed that Somkiat had hired him for 10,000 baht to drive and pick up the young Chinese woman. After leaving the hotel, he had stopped to pick up Somkiat and two other men.
Once all of them were inside the sedan, the two men in the back seat forcibly snatched the Chinese woman's phone and bound her hands. He said he had asked what they were doing, to which one of them told him not to interfere and just to keep driving — until they reached Kamphaeng Phet Province, where they were apprehended by police as described.
Police Sub-Lieutenant Chakraphet Khruecha, Superintendent of the Prevention and Suppression unit at Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station, provided additional details of the incident, stating that the Chinese woman had her hands bound with cable ties and was inside a black Nissan Teana which had broken through a patrol checkpoint of Mueang Kamphaeng Phet Police Station in front of the Chula booth. The car fled and dumped the young Chinese woman at the Tuang Rat intersection. The Chinese woman then went to knock on the door of the Tuang Rat hair salon to seek help.
Meanwhile, the patrol unit pursued the suspects' vehicle as far as Lan Dok Mai sub-district, before firing at the car's tyres with a firearm, causing a tyre blowout and enabling officers to arrest two of the suspects. Two others abandoned the car and fled on foot — one of whom has already been identified — while the search for the remaining suspect is ongoing.
