A 22-year-old Russian tourist was stabbed by an angry watch seller after refusing to buy a counterfeit item in Pattaya on Friday night, said police.
Ivan Cherkashhin, 22, sustained a serious knife wound to his left rib cage in the attack that took place at a Starbucks coffee shop at the Central Pattaya Beach shopping mall late on Friday.
His elder sister Nadezhdn Cherkashhin, 26, told police her brother was drinking coffee when a watch seller approached him. The seller tried to persuade her brother to buy his watch but he refused to do so after finding it was a fake.
The vendor, however, kept pestering him, causing him to show bad temper. This angered the seller, who suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed him, she said.
A Starbucks employee said the Russian was attacked at around 9pm. Security guards at the shopping mall later sent him to Pattaya Memorial Hospital.
Police have examined closed-circuit cameras and will hunt down the suspect as the incident tarnished the tourism image of the resort city.