Police officers from Bangkok’s metropolitan bureau had less than 24 hours to prepare for their latest undercover operation. They would be starring as performers of a lion dance at a temple fair held for the lunar new year. Their mission: track down and arrest a suspected thief who had a history of evading officers.
“The dance was spontaneous. We just did what we did,” said the police captain Lertvarit Lertvorapreecha, adding that nobody had time to practise. In his haste, he accidentally picked up his colleague’s male mask, which he wore with a red silk dress, trousers and tactical shoes.
Their disguise seemed to work, however. Children rushed over to join in, passersby laughed. Crucially, they were able to take their suspect by surprise, wrestling him to the ground in a tumble of red and gold fabric. He is now in prison awaiting trial, accused of stealing Buddhist artefacts worth £47,717.
Officers from Lertvarit’s team have often donned unusual disguises to surprise suspects, dressing as foliage, construction workers and even a Lycra-clad wrestler, with footage going viral online and making headlines both in Thailand and abroad.
“You cannot hide from the invisible, or from what you cannot see,” said Lertvarit.
“The fastest way of arresting someone is to surprise them, when they’re enjoying life, not knowing what’s going on around them,” he added.
The inspiration for disguises comes from fieldwork and criminal profiling, according to Lertvarit. In the lion dance case, officers were aware the suspect had fled to a new area, and that lunar new year festivities, when the streets would be busy with celebrations, would provide a good opportunity for them to blend into crowds.
The target was a professional thief with a long history of robberies, said Lertvarit. “He is very aware of his surroundings. If he’s suspicious of something, he’ll just flee. He’s a very good runner as well,” he added.
The suspect, who has since confessed to some robberies, was carrying a knife at the time of his arrest, said Lertvarit.
Though the undercover disguises have been largely played for laughs on social media, these tactics have been used to apprehend criminals accused of serious crimes, including rape and sexual offences against children.
In another case that drew attention domestically, an officer crawled for several hundred metres through rice fields in a ghillie (camouflage) suit – losing his headphones along the way – to apprehend a man wanted for sexually assaulting a minor. The suspect in the 2024 case was living in an isolated hut surrounded by fields, and officers feared he would easily spot them approaching if they arrived in cars or on motorbikes.
In a separate case that same month, an officer dressed as a wrestler, as part of an elaborate undercover operation to arrest a Chinese tourist accused of rape and of filming his victim.
The suspect had, in conversation with undercover officers, requested a man dressed as a wrestler for swinging.
When he arrived at a hotel room, the undercover officer shouted a code word. At which point back-up officers burst from the wardrobes, hotel bathroom, balcony and from under the bed. They seized evidence including videos on the man’s phone. At the time, the individual denied wrongdoing.
The bureau has rejected suggestions the operations are geared at making social media content, saying that they have brought about real arrests. Disguises were generally only used to apprehend experienced criminals or those with a history of fleeing arrest, Lertvarit said, adding that the public response had been overwhelmingly positive.
Polling has shown that members of the Thai public have mixed attitudes towards the police, with one survey showing a high level of confidence, but another indicating many respondents were concerned about corruption.
Lertvarit hopes the footage of operations that has been shared will show the Thai public that they are committed to fighting crime – and remind criminals that “the world is getting smaller every day”.
