Three Indians rescued after Pattaya kidnapping, torture

Victims lured with cheap tour package, as gang demanded ransom of 7 million rupees (2.4 million baht)

CHON BURI — Police rescued three Indian men after they were held for ransom by a scam gang that lured them from their homeland to Pattaya with a cheap tour package and tortured them for a week.

Police found the three victims, aged 23 to 26, at a two-storey house on Map Tato Road in tambon Nongprue, Bang Lamung district, at 4pm on Monday. 

Officers found them locked in two bedrooms, their limbs and mouths bound, with bruises on their ankles consistent with being struck by hard objects.

The victims told police they had bought a seven-day tour package to visit Thailand and paid about 70,000 baht each.

They arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport in Samut Prakan province at 5am on July 21 and took a taxi to Pattaya. They reached a meeting point at a fast-food restaurant on Sukhumvit Highway in Nongprue at 7am.

From the eatery, an Indian man on a motorcycle took them one by one to the house.

At the house, a group of four Pakistanis and one Indian man tied them. The victims said they were sometimes hung face down and had their ankles beaten. They were forced to call their families in India to demand a combined ransom of 7 million rupees (about 2.4 million baht).

The victims said they were denied meals and toilet breaks and were tortured daily.

Pol Col Napatpong Kositsuriyamanee, immigration chief of Chon Buri, said the victims’ relatives phoned Thai police to seek help.

Detectives found the gang used a phone number registered in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to conceal their location, but police tracked them to the house. The kidnappers fled on motorcycles just before police arrived.

Pol Col Napatpong said the case showed scammers lured victims with “cheap tour packages” and then held them for ransom after arrival.