A 60-year-old Chinese tourist, who is a world-renowned violinist, filed a lost property report with police after he left his violin in a taxi early on Tuesday morning.
Xue Wei said his violin, which is contained in a cream-coloured case, is about 200 years old and valued about Bt18 million. Apart from the money, he told police that the violin is of great sentimental value to him.
Xue told Thonglor police that he hailed a taxi at about 11.10pm, from a Chinese restaurant in Sukhumvit Soi 26, to go to Sukhumvit Soi 31.
After getting out of the taxi, Xue realised that he had left his violin in the taxi, so he alerted Thonglor police. The receipt for the fare identified the taxi driver as Utain Denkhuntod.
CCTV footage of where Xue got into and out of the taxi did not show the license plate of the taxi clearly, so police the asked the Jor Sor 100 traffic radio station to help locate Utain.
The radio station managed to obtain the taxi’s license plate details and tried to call Utain, but there was no answer.
Utain later told Jor Sor 100 that, when he saw that the violin case had been left in his car, he turned back to where he left Xue, but could not find him.
He then left the violin in the trunk and alerted owner of the rented taxi, before going home. When he woke up the next morning, he saw multiple missed calls from the station, so he called them back and arranged to return the violin. Xue rewarded him with gift voucher.
As a gesture of appreciation and gratitude, Xue then played his violin for police and other people in the police station.
Xue Wei won the silver medal at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition, the Sonata prize and Orchestra and Audience prize at the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition and was voted the LPO/ Pioneer UK Young Soloist of the Year in 1986.
He was described as “a devastating performer, combining formidable technical prowess with great breadth and variety of expression” by The Guardian.
