Mum fears for missing Malaysian tourist
CHIANG RAI: The mother of a 22-year-old Malaysian woman has met the Pavena Foundation for Children and Women and tourist police over the fate of her daughter who went missing in Mae Sai district more than a week ago.
Sources said Chong Sum Yee, or Angie, checked in to a hotel near the Mae Sai border checkpoint on May 29.
The following day she rode on a motorcycle towards the border in tambon Koh Chang of Mae Sai, where the Ruak River delineates the frontier, with Tachilek township in Myanmar on the other side.
The young tourist was seen in surveillance footage sitting in the lobby of the hotel. A white-clad woman greeted her, and they both walked out of the hotel.
She was seen riding pillion on a motorcycle towards the border in tambon Koh Chang.
Officials later found the woman motorcyclist, who said Angie paid her 500 baht to go to a border pier in tambon Koh Chang. She did not know if the Malaysian woman crossed the border.
The signal from the missing woman’s mobile phone disappeared at the border in tambon Koh
Chang. Thai officials said she might have entered Myanmar using an unofficial border crossing point.
Thai officials have asked their counterparts in Myanmar to look for the missing woman. They were awaiting official notification from her family.
Ms Chong’s mother, identified only as Caiyun, yesterday arrived in Mae Sai district from Kuala Lumpur. There, she met Pavena Hongsakula, chairwoman of the Pavena Foundation for Children and Women, who was attending a conference on tackling Thais trafficked to work in Myanmar and also spoke to tourist police, apparently to exchange information about her missing daughter.
Ms Caiyun told Ms Pavena and police that her family runs a cosmetic business. Before Ms Chong’s disappearance, she had travelled to Chiang Mai. Ms Caiyun said she believes her daughter may have fallen victim to a con.
She said that soon after Ms Chong went missing, she received a message from her daughter via the Line application telling her not to worry. Ms Caiyun said she thought someone else had sent the message and her daughter was being held against her will.