UPDATE The missing 14-year-old school girl Tipayarat "Yoyo" Laosuwanpong was found safe late Thursday in Chiang Mai. The family are awaiting details and a happy reunion. A worried family has asked the Crime Suppression Division to find a missing 14-year-old girl who excels in school and has been missing for 15 days.
Police said they detained a 52-year-old Chiang Mai man in connection with the case. A Thai-language newspaper report said the man's daughter could be involved.
More details of finding Yoyo were unknown and would be released later, police said.
The girl's father, Ronachai Laosuwanpong, 41, and his sister Wanwisa Laosuwanpong, 38, had only informed the CSD on Thursday of the disappearance of Tipayarat, a bright junior secondary student at Saipanya School.
Before the happy discovery of a safe Yoyo late on Thursday, Ms Wanwisa told the media her niece was last seen riding in a tuk-tuk in Bangkok about 2pm on Dec 27, and logged in to her Facebook account from the eastern province of Rayong the following day. The family had not been able to contact her since.
School friends told the family that Yoyo had not gone on a New Year vacation with them. However, she did not have a boyfriend or any friend outside her school that they knew of, the aunt said.
Tipayarat Laosuwanpong, 14, aka Yoyo, found safe in Chiang Mai on Thursday night.
"My niece is a good girl and thrives at school. Her exam results are always the best in her class. Her parents had her care for her siblings after school and she couldn't go out with friends and attend tuition after classes as she wished," Ms Wanwisa said.
The girl has two brothers, aged six and eight years.
About two months before her disappearance, the girl began looking at her parents differently, as if she had some secret, she said.
"I think someone is behind her disappearance, someone my niece maybe trusts. She does not have enough money to keep away from police on her own. She might have contacted somebody online," Ms Wanwisa said.
The family had suspicions about five or so people around the same age as the girl's father, the aunt said.
