Motorists driving on motorways are now warned of extortion gangs which have been staging fake accidents and demanding injury or damage compensation.
The gangs will trick unsuspecting drivers into crashing into their cars so that they can claim compensation.
The warning came from Bang Pa-in police in Ayutthaya province after a Facebook user posted a video clip taken from his car dashboard video camera exposing two cars, one black and one white, are driving suspiciously as they tried to sandwich a pickup truck in the middle.
He said he was following them from behind while he was driving on Highway 347 from Bang Pa-in to Bang Pahan.
In the finale, an accident happened and the driver in the black car came out and demanded the pickup truck driver 8,000 baht in damage compensation to his car.
Shortly later another man in the white car also came out to negotiate compensation for his car.
He wrote that the truck driver refused to pay by telling them that he was going to call police to decide the accident.
At this point, both drivers agreed to leave, telling the truck driver “Never mind” and they all split up and drove out.
The poster said as he left the scene after talking with the truck driver and telling him of the suspecious driving of the two cars, he saw the same black car driver standing by the roadside talking with another pickup truck driver in another accident as if another compensation claim was being demanded from the truck driver.
He then immediately reported the two cases to Bang Pa-in police as he now believed it was surely the work of crooked gang trying to orchestrate car crashes to con victims out of cash.
Police arrived but not as fast as the crooked gang who has managed to escape, he said.
However he said his dashboard car video camera has captured all their cars and he has shown it to the police to track down the extortion team.
Bang Pa-in police superintendent Pol Col Chaiya Ohetpanya said he has ordered police ti check video cameras along the highway in bud to hunt down the gang, and checked the license plates of these two cars.
Initially it was still unknown if the two cars were really in the gang which crashed for cash as the video he obtained was unclear.
It could be either real or fake crash, he said but assured that the police would try to identify them and summon them for questioning.
However he warned all drivers to aware of such crooked gang which crash for cash, by engineering such incredibly dangerous crashes.
Police warn motorists of "crash for cash" crooked gang while driving on motorways - Thai PBS English News