A woman was caught stealing 120 THB worth of makeup in a local 7/11 convenience store in Hatyai, Songkhla Province.
The Hatyai police were notified of a theft case on 3 October 2019. The 7/11 staff had trapped the suspect inside to keep her in the store with the evidence still on her.
When the police arrived the 44-year-old woman was standing beside the cashier counter. In her hands was a 7/11 bag filled with makeup items including 1 box of facial cream and 1 box of nail polish, together the items were worth 120 THB.
The woman admitted right away that she truly did steal the items. This may seem like a simple case of a woman wanting makeup when she didn’t have the funds to support buying unnecessary items, but the truth is, the story behind her actions was quite sad and hurtful towards the suspect.
Her husband left her 5 months ago and told her it was because she’s too fat, adding to her scars on her feet and hands caused by her job.
She works as an employee for a soymilk store, the scars were caused by boiling water used to make the soymilk.
The suspect earns 200 THB per day which is way below the minimum wage and she has debts with 2 children to take care of.
One of the store employees stated that this is not the first time the suspect has stolen something from the specific 7/11. On 21 August 2019, the woman stole a bottle of cough medicine.
They saw her carry the bottle out, but she quickly walked out and ran away from the store. She was caught on footage by the security camera, so they kept the footage just in case a similar case occurred again.
Things went as expected, and the woman showed up again on the day of the incident stealing more items than the last time.
When the woman was trapped inside the store, the woman kept pleading to the staff to let her go.
She stated that there were 2 children that she had to take care of, she also had to take some medicine back because her children weren’t feeling so well.
The police called the 7/11 branch owner to talk with the woman. The branch owner agreed to let her go after she promised to never steal again from any store.
The woman was made to pay for the makeup.
The police then took her to the police station and made a historical document that does not impose any penalties, but will be used as proof if she ever committed theft again in the future.
