BANGKOK — Don Mueang Police Station officers successfully tracked down a Rolex watch that a passenger had forgotten at the hand baggage X-ray checkpoint, after a female Chilean passenger traveling to Phuket had picked it up.
On November 10, Police Colonel Sukrit Mangkalasawat, Superintendent of Don Mueang Police Station, and his team returned a Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch, valued at approximately 200,000 baht, to Ms. Rachavalee, age 21. Police Lieutenant Colonel Chamnan Yut Kong Kong, inquiry officer at Don Mueang Police Station, witnessed the handover.
Ms. Rachavalee said that around 9:20 p.m. on November 6, while traveling from Don Mueang Airport to Chiang Mai, she realized she had left her watch at the X-ray checkpoint in Don Mueang Airport. Upon arriving in Chiang Mai, she booked a return flight for the next day to immediately file a police report, but the valuable item was nowhere to be found.
Subsequently, Police Colonel Sukrit ordered the investigation team to coordinate with Don Mueang Airport authorities to review CCTV footage of the incident area. They discovered that a foreign woman, who went through the scanner immediately after Ms. Rachavalee, had picked up the watch.
Further investigation revealed that this woman was Leslie, a 39-year-old Chilean national, traveling with her family of three to Phuket. Officers coordinated with Phuket Tourist Police and found that she and her family were staying at a hotel in Kathu District, Phuket.
Tourist police retrieved the watch from her, and Leslie admitted to taking it, stating she thought it belonged to someone in her family. She willingly agreed to return it to its owner.
Ms. Rachavalee said, “I didn’t think I would get my valuable possession back because I didn’t know who had taken it or where they had gone. The monetary value isn’t important, but this watch was a gift from my mother, so it has great sentimental value. I’m overjoyed to have it back.”
She expressed her gratitude to the officers at Don Mueang Police Station and Phuket Tourist Police for their efforts in recovering the watch.
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