A policeman in a mask, as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, patrols Chinatown in Bangkok on April 17, 2020. (AFP / Lillian Suwanrumpha)

Old hoax recirculates online in Thailand about 'water tap burglary trick' warning from police

This article is more than one year old.
Published on May 7, 2020 at 10:45
2 min read
By AFP Thailand

Multiple Facebook and Twitter posts shared tens of thousands of times claim that Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau has issued a notice about a new "water tap" ruse being used by thieves. The claim is false; the hoax has circulated since at least 2018; it has been refuted by the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) commissioner as “old fake news”.

The post was published on Facebook here on March 23, 2020. It has since been shared more than 20,000 times.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

Screenshot of the misleading post

The post's Thai-language caption translates to English as: “Be careful”.

Part of the Thai text overlaid in the image in the misleading post translates to English as: “#Warningtoday / If you are home alone or live with a baby or old people, and you wake up in the middle of the night and hear something similar to a water tap being opened or your water pipe has broken outside of the house. Do not leave!!!!! To discover what is because currently there are thieves who are using the method of turning your water tap the hardest so that you or the owner of the house to walk outside the house and that is when they will attack you and drug you.”

The post features the logo of the CIB, an agency under the Royal Thai Police.

The claim is false.

Thailand’s CIB commissioner, Pol. Lt. Gen. Sutin Suppuang, said the claim is an “old hoax”.

“I can confirm that this claim is 100% fake news, and it has been circulating around for a very long time," Suppuang told AFP by phone on May 6, 2020. "Usually thieves attack their victims in different patterns, depending on their behaviours. I have never heard of this."

Thailand’s Anti-Fake News Centre, a government-run platform within the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, also published this report on January 9, 2020, describing the claims in the misleading post as “fake information”.

Below is a screenshot of the Anti-Fake News Centre’s article:

Screenshot of the Anti-Fake News Centre’s article

The Thai headline reads: “Central Investigation Bureau leaks the news about thieves hiding inside the house and opening the water taps is fake news causing public alarm among the people, don’t share!!”

An example of the old hoax circulating on Facebook in 2018 can be seen here.

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