A photo of a monk randomly standing amongst police investigators and busted criminal is going viral in Thailand this week, drawing mockery and juvenile laughter from Thai netizens because it was shared with a false caption that the monk was a police officer in disguise.
But no, he’s a real monk in Lopburi province, who has helped the police bust drugs criminals in his rural city for over ten years.
Upon reaching out to Tha Hin police station, Coconuts found out that the monk — whose name was withheld by the police — lives at Sao Tong Thong Temple and helps police monitor drug use and trafficking in all temples in the province.
Obviously, drug use among newly-ordained monks is a problem in the Monkey City, so the police recruited this monk for help, Pol. Col. Pairat Praditthaja told Coconuts.
Pol. Col. Pairat assured Coconuts that the monk didn’t even participate in the photographed bust, “He was just in the station that day when we brought the perpetrator in, so we decided to take a photo.”
After the photo, which was actually not meant to be shared publicly, was posted on the Thai Rescue News Facebook page, the social network has been buzzing with a false info — that a cop went undercover as a monk in a string operation to buy meth tablets.
Right, maybe that could work as the criminals probably don’t think the cops would go that far as to disguise as a monk.
Pol. Col. Pairat regards this claim as “humorously false and completely absurd.”
As for how the photo got leaked, Pairat assumed it was through a private message group.
“We have a LINE group, which is where we shared this photo. I guess that’s how it got leaked,” he reflected.
“Going undercover as a monk?” Pairat repeated at the end of our conversation, clearly amused, “We cops aren’t crazy enough to mess with anything that sacred.”
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