Man Found Dead in Pickup After App Loan Harassment
A 47-year-old factory worker was found dead in a locked pickup truck at a fruit orchard in Bang Lamung, Chonburi, with a charcoal stove inside the vehicle. He had been missing since the previous day after borrowing a small sum via a lending app and facing intense debt-collection harassment and a hacked Facebook account. Police are investigating the death as a suspected suicide linked to the financial pressure and online threats.
At 7:00 a.m. on November 2, 2026, Pol. Lt. Col. Apichat Methithamaporn, investigator at Bang Lamung Police Station, received a report of a body inside a vehicle at the entrance of a fruit orchard adjacent to a meditation center in Bang Lamung district, Chonburi. He rushed to the scene with rescuers from the Sawang Boriboon Thammasathan Pattaya City Foundation. The incident site is about 100 meters from the main road. A Chonburi-registered pickup truck was found parked blocking the orchard entrance, engine off and doors locked. On the driver’s seat lay the body of a 47-year-old man, identified only as Mr. A (pseudonym), an auto-parts production worker at a factory, reclined as if sleeping. Officers used tools to open the door and found a charcoal stove on the rear floorboard. A preliminary examination showed no signs of a struggle, and the man is estimated to have been dead for at least six hours.
The orchard owner, 65, said that around 7:00 a.m. he received a call from the deceased’s wife asking him to help locate her husband after she found a farewell letter at home. He was on the opposite side of the orchard entrance and drove over to check, discovering the pickup. He then coordinated with the wife to come to the scene.
The wife, 54, who had been married to the man for 18 years, arrived with their daughter. Both broke down in tears upon seeing the body. She said her husband had been visibly stressed all week after borrowing 4,000 baht via a lending app. Debt-collection calls came in all day; sometimes she tried to answer but he forbade it, fearing scammers. His Facebook account had also been hacked, with messages sent to friends asking for loans, adding to his anxiety. Fortunately, it was an old account with few contacts.
On the afternoon of November 1, the husband left home in the pickup and cut off contact. Around 5:00 a.m. on November 2, the wife found a farewell note in a notebook, apologizing to the family and expressing worry that scammers might have accessed his accounts, ending with "Goodbye." After reading it, she and their daughter grew frantic, especially after noticing a charcoal stove that used to sit in front of their house was missing. They tried to contact him and searched with help from acquaintances before receiving the tragic news.
Police have sent the body for a detailed autopsy at Pattaya Patamakun Hospital and are investigating the debt issues and the hacking to determine the exact cause and circumstances of death.
