Gang uses phones to foil police
CHAIWAT SADYAEM
Hua Hin _ One might be forgiven for thinking that it would be impossible for people dressed in rags, who make a living by begging for money or food, to afford a mobile phone. But a gang of beggars in Prachuap Khiri Khan's Hua Hin district turned everyone's heads yesterday when they flaunted their mobile phones to alert their fellows and escape the long arm of the law.
Only three out of two hundred beggars in downtown Hua Hin were arrested.
The rest managed to vanish into thin air because they had mobile phones to alert each other to the police swoop, said Somphop Wong-apai, of Prachuap Khiri Khan's social development and human security office yesterday.
Mr Somphop said the beggars usually ply crowded areas such as a morning market, a railway market and the Grand Hotel in Hua Hin.
Most of the beggars come from Cambodia and they stay together in rented houses.
Police said they usually depart for their morning begging rounds at 5am.
There are pick-up trucks to take them to locations suitable for begging such as Prachuap Khiri Khan's Hua Hin and Bang Saphan districts.
''They look like ordinary people and some are well-dressed. When they reach their 'workplace', they change into shabby clothes and roam the local streets holding out their hands for money,'' police said.
When night falls, the pick-ups take them to other begging spots.
Some journalists failed in their attempts to capture the mobile phone-flaunting beggars on camera because the beggars were vigilant and quick to spread warnings among themselves.
Their patrons usually give money out of sympathy for the beggars, some of whom walk with what look like painful limps.
But generous folk might now be having second thoughts after seeing the police appearance send the beggars sprinting off at top speed, police said.
Mr Somphop said it is tough for the police to crack down on the beggars because the gang is well organised, with influential figures behind it. Moreover, some local residents have condemned the authorities for harassing the underprivileged and the poor, Mr Somphop said.
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