A MAN accused of snatching a necklace from a woman in the capital on Sunday was beaten by a small mob then arrested after police said he made a stupefied mistake: returning to the scene of the crime to ask if the necklace was real platinum.

Pha Na, police chief in Daun Penh district’s Srah Chak commune, said officers had arrested Tha Piseth, 19, over the theft of a platinum necklace – which turned out to be the real deal.

“The arrested suspect was sent to the police station in Daun Penh district,” he said, before refusing to reveal more details of the incident.

A commune police officer who asked not to be named told the Post that the suspect was one of three men who had first snatched a phone from three women near the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port.

The trio, however, had decided it was more lucrative to instead flee the scene with a necklace owned by one of the women, aged 18.

The officer alleged that Piseth and his accused co-offenders had doubted the authenticity of the necklace, so they returned to quiz its owner about its true value.

“He was hit in the head and soon arrested with help from villagers after the victims noticed the men coming back and cried for help,” the officer said.

The other two men fled the scene on a motorbike before police could intercept them – taking the necklace with them, he added.