Shocked villagers found stolen women's underwear dumped in a forest in Thailand.

A resident who took his cows out to graze discovered the bizarre haul of garments believed to have been used for deviant sexual activities in a wooded area near Thung Khao Tok Village in Chiang Mai province.

Upon receiving the report, village leaders Somchai Mengkhao and Sayant Siri visited the site around 300 metres from the community on March 18.

Several pairs of sullied bras and panties of varying sizes were strewn on the ground near a tree. Authorities believe they were stolen by a pervert who had used the undergarments to pleasure himself before dumping them in the forest.

Sayant said: 'The villagers had approached me before saying their underwear had been stolen. Because they didn't have CCTV cameras, we couldn't prove claims that there was an underwear thief until now.

'The underwear was likely abandoned for a long time since they are already frayed and stiff. The villagers said they suspected the thief was not a local, but a foreign worker near the area.'

Sayant has urged residents to be vigilant and dry their clothes indoors to prevent more thefts.

Last month, a prolific underwear thief who had been stealing knickers for 20 years had been arrested in Bangkok.

Nattawut Songchai, 38, was nabbed by police after he was seen on security footage plucking underwear from a female apartment tenant's clothesline. When officers raided his room, they found a stash of around 600 undergarments he had been collecting since he was a teenager.

Nattawut claimed he became an underwear thief 'because he liked to smell them'.

While in March 2023, another Thai man was arrested for stealing hundreds of pieces of underwear to pleasure himself.

Ophas Chuenjit, 27, had plucked the bras and knickers from women's washing lines and rubbed them on himself while masturbating. When he was done, he used the undergarments to decorate a bamboo thicket in the woods near his home in Kamphaeng Phet province.

Stealing underwear is a type of fetish or 'paraphilia' - intense sexual arousal derived from objects, fantasies, or behaviours.

In an interview with the New Straits Times, Dr. Shazli Ezzat Ghazali, Clinical Psychology and Behavioural Health Program Associate Professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said stealing underwear in particular may make the perpetrator 'feel closer' to the knicker owners.

He added the thieves may feel excitement from committing such taboo activities.