Section 349: Damaging one's own pledged property
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดเอาไปเสีย ทำให้เสียหาย ทำลาย ทำให้เสื่อมค่าหรือทำให้ไร้ประโยชน์ซึ่งทรัพย์อันตนจำนำไว้แก่ผู้อื่น ถ้าได้กระทำเพื่อให้เกิดความเสียหายแก่ผู้รับจำนำ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินสองปี หรือปรับไม่เกินสี่หมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๔ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever takes away, damages, destroys, depreciates, or renders useless property that he has pledged to another person, if the act is done to cause damage to the pledgee, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding two years, or a fine not exceeding forty thousand baht, or both.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 349 sits in the chapter on cheating against creditors and protects the security interest of a pledgee. The elements are: the offender pledged property to the pledgee, the property remained subject to that pledge, the offender took it away or damaged, destroyed, depreciated, or rendered it useless, and he acted with the specific intent to cause damage to the pledgee. Because the offender is dealing with property he owns but has encumbered, the wrong lies in defeating the pledgee's security, not in taking another's property, which distinguishes it from theft and misappropriation. It commonly overlaps with trespass where the pledged goods are removed from the pledgee's premises.
Why this matters in practice
Exposure is modest, up to two years or a forty thousand baht fine, but the specific intent to harm the pledgee must be proved, so a pledgor who moved or handled the goods for a legitimate reason has a genuine defence. As with the whole chapter on cheating against creditors, this offence is compoundable under Section 351, so it can be settled and the complaint withdrawn. Where the goods are taken from a warehouse or premises held by the pledgee, prosecutors often add trespass, which raises the potential penalty. Anyone facing a pledge dispute that has turned criminal should get advice on fraud and dishonesty offences in Thailand before responding.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 1363/2550 (2007)
Where the pledgee allows the goods to remain in the pledgor's possession, the goods have not been delivered as security within the pledge provisions of the Civil and Commercial Code. There is no pledge, so an essential element of the offence under Section 349 is missing.
The co-plaintiff and the defendant made a contract of pledge over rice, but the co-plaintiff let the rice stay in the defendant's possession, so there was no pledge and no offence under Section 349. The co-plaintiff had also taken a lease of the rice warehouse, which was the warehouse the defendant used for his own mill; the defendant alone held the key and remained in possession, and the rent was only 100 baht a year. The Supreme Court held the lease a formality that the parties never intended as a real lease, so the defendant was still the possessor and could not disturb his own possession: there was no trespass either.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 10 Supreme Court decisions (1959 to 2014)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 1363/2550 (2007)
- Decision 5590/2536 (1993)
- Decision 3684-3685/2532 (1989)
- Decision 650/2510 (1967)
- Decision 490/2502 (1959)
- Decision 3684/2532 (1989)
- Decision 1050/2507 (1964)
- Decision 1676/2557 (2014)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
Is Section 349 about damaging someone else's property?
No. It applies where the offender damages or removes property that he himself pledged to another person, done to harm the pledgee. Damaging another person's property falls under the mischief sections instead.
Can a Section 349 case be settled?
Yes. Section 351 makes every offence in the cheating-against-creditors chapter compoundable, so the pledgee can settle and withdraw the complaint.
What must the prosecution prove?
That the property was pledged to the pledgee, that the accused took, damaged, destroyed, depreciated, or rendered it useless, and that he intended to cause the pledgee loss.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 349 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 349. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-349/ (accessed 20 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 349 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-349/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-349/"><p>Whoever takes away, damages, destroys, depreciates, or renders useless property that he has pledged to another person, if the act is done to cause damage to the pledgee, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding two years, or a fine not exceeding forty thousand baht,…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 349 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-349/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.