Criminal picks cell lock with single wire, escapes while cop on toilet

Thais don’t call their prisons “criminal college” for nothing. Take this dude’s lock picking skills acquired from his old cellmate as an example.

Panom Sirikul, 36, mysteriously disappeared from his detention cell at Takua Pa police station in Phang Nga on Tuesday morning after he was arrested for using drugs. Police found him hiding at a palm oil plantation yesterday afternoon and took him back to the police station.

To reenact the escape, Panom showed the police how he used a 3-inch wire he carried in the shirt he was wearing to pick the cell lock. He reached his hand out from the bars to pick the lock and successfully got out in 30 minutes, while the guard was taking an extended bathroom break.

Panom said he was previously in jail for theft and that he learned to pick locks from his last cellmate.

Phang Nga Police’s urgent report to the Royal Thai Police Headquarters will lead to an upgrade in detention cells in police stations to prevent lockpickers from escaping in the future, Thairath reported.



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