‘Brilliant’ thief with penchant just for bananas gave pilfered spoils to homeless
Police recently arrested a serial phone thief exactly who targeted branches of the Banana IT shop chain in many provinces. CCTV footage caused interest in the felon to surge as in each case this showed a man putting on nothing but underpants committing the crime.
He had been soon dubbed “Robin Hood in underpants” after it was revealed that he had provided many of the phones to homeless people.
It was among the strangest cases that will his team offers ever experienced, based on Pol Maj Gen Theeradet Thamsuthee, analysis chief for Provincial Police Region two, who led the system tasked with investigating the underdressed robber. The pant-clad anti-hero was identified as Jeh Issamaeh Hama, 23, also known as Khamas. He was arrested on July 4.
It all started after the cyber police were alerted for an incident at a Clown IT shop in Muang district of Nakhon Nayok on July 3. From around 3am, Khamas allegedly broke in to the shop and made off with 128 items — mostly mobile phones — really worth 1 . 91 million baht.
The thief also disconnected CCTV digital cameras and escaped with a prearranged route in order to make police believe he was a nearby, said Pol Maj Gen Theeradet. But when they reviewed WIRED footage, they discovered that the man had scouted the area just before committing the criminal offense.
Crime records for the region showed there have been a number of similar thefts during the past 8-9 yrs. After combining their own work with analysis in the Police Cyber Taskforce, the investigation group were able to learn the thief was a native of Narathiwat province who had initial been arrested with regard to stealing when this individual was just 14.
Eventually, police learned the man was wanted upon three warrants issued last year by Yala Provincial Court upon Feb 4, Songkhla Juvenile and Family members Court on May 27 and Phatthalung Provincial Court upon April 23. An additional one was issued by the Min Buri Criminal Court upon Jan 20 this year. He had committed a number of crimes including robbing, damage to property plus trespassing.
Acting on a tip-off, officers arrested Khamas on July four at a rented room in Bang Kapi district of Bangkok.
Pol Maj Gen Theeradet told media that police found thirty-one mobile phones inside the premises on Seri Thailänder Road, while fifty eight more were discovered in another room the particular suspect rented on Ramkhamhaeng Road in the same district.
The man was about to leave with regard to Narathiwat with the stolen phones when he was caught, Pol Maj Gen Theeradet said.
The suspect had been accused of robbing from a Banana IT shop in the southern border province associated with Yala on January 27, 2021, and from another from the chain’s outlets in Sai Mai area in Bangkok upon Jan 9 this season.
The man admitted his sense of guilt.
He or she allegedly told police he stole just from Banana IT shops because he enjoyed bananas and the colour yellow. He said he wore just underpants because dressing that way made him feel like “himself”.
The believe was also quoted as telling police that he disconnected and took CCTV cameras along with the phones because press outlets used to call him “a perv thief in underpants” which he failed to like so he had wanted to remove any record of him just wearing underpants.
Pol Maj Gen Theeradet said the believe searched for Banana IT shops using Google-maps and would search the area around 3-6 hours in advance.
The man furthermore told police that he stole mobile phones as they did not have one during his childhood, in contrast to his friends.
During asking, Khamas said he had given phones and money to destitute people at Hua Lamphong railway station and Sanam Luang in Bangkok, and also to people in his home province of Narathiwat, as he too had been homeless once. The particular suspect also apparently stole from Banana IT outlets within Songkhla, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Phatthalung and Nakhon Si Thammarat provinces in the Southern, and in Nong Bua Lam Phu plus Ubon Ratchathani provinces in the Northeast.
Pol Maj Gen Theeradet stated the suspect was a brilliant student who had been studying law on university and has been very close to getting a degree with variation. However , due to his poor financial position, the man had fought to make ends meet for a while.
Pol Maj Gen Theeradet noted that generally of phone theft, police can easily locate the stolen mobile phones from the vendors exactly who bought them, but in this case, it had been much harder since so many had been given away.
But they caught their man in the end, although the whereabouts of the rest of their clothes remain a mystery.