No joke: Robbers in Thailand flee after gold shop owner pulls out bigger gun

A gang of armed robbers descended upon a gold shop in the northern Thai province of Tak, only to realise that they'd messed with the wrong target.

The incident happened at about 12.55pm last Thursday (Dec 8), reported local media.

CCTV footage from within the shop showed the four men arriving on motorbikes and proceeding to shoot at the shop's glass doors.

After getting in, one of them began cutting through the steel bars to get to the jewellery.

That was when shop owner Phisit Raphitphan took action.

The 41-year-old owner of the gold shop was heard firing a gunshot off-camera, which prompted the four robbers to turn tail and run.

One of the men even slipped and fell on the broken glass in his mad rush to escape.

The Thaiger reported that Raphitphan fired another four shots, one of which hit one of the robbers, who was later found by police lying in a pool of blood outside the shop. Some reports stated that the man, a Thai national, subsequently died in hospital.

Another Thai assailant who escaped on foot was eventually arrested by police. The two other robbers, believed to be Burmese nationals, managed to flee the scene on a motorbike and are still at large.

Police told reporters that both Thai men had committed a separate robbery in Tak province on February 12 this year, where they made off with gold weighing 182 baht (a Thai unit of measurement for gold), or about 2.7kg.

A shooting range instructor and member of the Royal Thai army reportedly told media that Raphitphan was a gun enthusiast trained in using firearms, and had even won a local shooting contest.

Photos on social media showed that the gun which Raphitphan had used was a much larger weapon. Some netizens likened it to the M4 used by Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves in the John Wick film franchise.

According to lawyers interviewed by the media, Raphitphan is not likely to be charged with any criminal offence as he had fired the five shots at the armed robbers out of self-defence.

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candicecai@asiaone.com