Police give key piece of advice about fellow workers

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Police give key piece of advice about fellow workers

Carelessness in trusting a colleague almost cost two bank employees their life savings worth tens of millions of baht stored in safety deposit boxes
Published: 19/09/2011 at 12:00 AM
Bangkok Post: Newspaper section: News
 
A bank employee who drove a luxury car and flashed expensive clothes despite earning a basic salary and coming from a modest upcountry background drew the suspicion of police investigating the disappearance of tens of millions of baht of cash and valuables from a bank vault.

On Sept 8, two female employees of the Ratchada-Lat Phrao branch of Bangkok Bank filed complaints with Phahon Yothin Police Station claiming that their money and valuables had been stolen from safety deposit boxes at the bank.

Wanpen Rassameepetchsopon said she lost about 20 million baht of her assets, while Poonnada Kamolchaipat said she lost about 2 million.

Police went to inspect the scene and later learned that a male staffer identified as Suwicharn Sangkaew also claimed assets worth almost 20 million baht had been stolen from his safety deposit box.

The three staff, who rented the boxes from their bank, said most of the stolen valuables were items of jewellery and rare amulets.

Pol Lt Col Surajit Plianprasert, who led the investigation team, said he had never experienced a case in which valuables vanished from a bank's safety boxes without apparent reason in his 33 years of law enforcement.

Pol Lt Col Surajit said each bank allows those renting a safety box to enter its vault one by one, as it is their policy to keep their client's personal information confidential. No surveillance camera was installed in the room. Therefore, no one really knew whether the three employees' valuables had gone missing as they claimed.

Seven employees, including Mrs Wanpen, Mrs Poonnada and Mr Suwicharn, rented boxes at the bank. Police focused their investigation on the seven in case one of them might be the thief.

Police questioned Mrs Wanpen and several of her colleagues to prove the source of her assets was legal. Her financial record appeared to be clean.

Mrs Wanpen said the valuables in the safety box belonged to her and her husband, a senior officer at the bank who died recently.

The investigation team decided to keep questioning more employees to see if any of them might be the suspect.

Mrs Poonnada was able to confirm the ownership of her assets to police. The costly items stolen from her safe mostly belonged to her sister and her brother-in-law.

The breakthrough came when police questioned Mr Suwicharn.

The man failed to convince police how he had obtained 4.3 million baht in cash to buy a new Mercedes-Benz, as he had worked at the bank for only two years and received a monthly salary of 15,000 baht.

He also used an iPhone4, wore expensive brand name clothes and carried a 50,000-baht-Louis Vuitton wallet.

Mr Suwicharn claimed his mother was rich. Police suspected the man was lying to them after they checked his family home in Lampang's Thoen district and found there was nothing opulent about it.

The most important piece of evidence that led to the arrest of Mr Suwicharn was a sales receipt from a gold shop which police found in his wallet.

Police inspected the gold shop and discovered the gold ornaments which Mr Suwicharn allegedly sold there belonged to Mrs Wanpen.

The suspect allegedly admitted that he was the thief. He said he used to be Mrs Wanpen's apprentice before becoming a full time employee at the bank. He happened to know that the woman kept her safe key in the drawer of her desk. He then rented a safety box so that he could enter the secure room.

He stole the key and took valuables from Mrs Wanpen's box time after time when she was away from work organising her husband's funeral.

When things settled down, the widow returned to work only to find her assets had gone missing from the safe.

In Mrs Poonnada's case, Mr Suwicharn said he and the woman had the same group of friends and often went out to eat together. He took the key from her shoulder bag.

Mr Suwicharn spent two months, from June to July, going in and out the bank vault to steal valuables from his colleagues.

Police seized 108 items stolen from the women's safe boxes when they searched the man's apartment in Lat Phrao district.

"This case serves to remind all of us pretty well that keeping things in a safety box may not always be safe if you don't take good care of the key," Pol Lt Col Surajit said.

The officer suggested keys should be kept concealed and frequently checked.

"Most importantly, keep the key's whereabouts secret to make sure it never gets into the wrong hands. Don't trust anyone, even those closest to you," Pol Lt Col Surajit said.