Several motorbikes were stolen last week in Vientiane, and most of them were of the Thai-made Honda Wave model.



Some bikes were stolen in a period of just five or 10 minutes, leading police to speculate that the thieves must have used a master key to steal the bikes.

Mr Ounkeo Souksavan, who lost his Honda Wave on Sunday, said he went to an Internet café at 7:30pm in Phonsinuan village, Xaysettha district of Vientiane.

He parked his bike in the front of the café and spent 30 minutes on the Internet, and then emerged to find his motorbike missing.

“People nearby told me that there had been three men standing in the front of the café, but they didn't know whether they owned any of the motorbikes in the front of the shop,” he said.

This has been a problem in the area in the past, and the managers of the Internet café had even put up a sign inviting motorbike owners to use one of the shop's padlocks to lock up their motorbikes.

So far, five motorbikes have been stolen from this stretch of road, and only one has been returned to its owner.

A police officer at Sisangvone village group, Mr Phouvan Sichanthavong, told Vientiane Times that 10 motorbikes had been stolen in July in his village group, seven more compared to June, and that most had been the Thai-made Honda Waves.

He added that police have returned half of the stolen bikes to their owners.

He said he thought the main reason was that it was school holidays, and that a number of students in the area had been experimenting with amphetamines, which led inevitably to the compulsion to steal other people's valuables.

“The thieves we arrested in June in our village group were mostly students and foreign residents,” he said.

He added that the students they caught were usually between 16 and 25. Their parents did not pay enough attention to them, and this led them to misbehave. Other people they had arrested had been older and unemployed.

Mr Phouvan said some of the perpetrators had sold the stolen bikes in neighbouring countries, while others had dismantled the bikes and sold the parts to shops.

The Deputy Chief of the headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Sengphet Phommaly, added that some young thieves also took stolen bikes into other provinces to sell.

“Really, I think it is the owners' mistake for not taking care of their property,” he said.

He didn't comment when asked about suggestions that police may have been involved in some motorbike thefts.

In Vientiane , a popular pastime among young people is to modify their Chinese motorbikes with Thai parts, to enhance the quality and make them last longer.

A number of other Vientiane police officers told Vientiane Times that after stealing motorbikes, thieves often abandoned the vehicles in the parting lots of hospitals, nightclubs and long-term parking lots for several days, to throw police and owners off the scent, before retrieving them later.

Source: vientianetimes via Landlocked news