Jordan Jacobs, 21, reportedly messaged his family saying ‘he could never see them again’ after he disappeared on the island of Koh Phi Phi Don

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A British traveller has gone missing in Thailand after telling his parents that a man had taken him to an island and would not let him leave.



Jordan Jacobs, 21, from Lyneham, Wiltshire, was due to fly home on Wednesday for Christmas but was last seen on one of the popular Phi Phi Islands on Saturday.

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Emily Jacobs, his sister, appealed for help on her Facebook page: “Any information no matter how small you think it is could be huge. Any sightings or potential sightings. Any contact. Anything.”

She said he left his hostel on the mainland to head to Koh Phi Phi Don, the largest island in the archipelago, “leaving behind his other backpacker friends”.

“He left with a local man that he met at the laundrette near to the hostel. The man offered to take him to the island for free. That evening (Thai local time) was when he called my parents. He was upset,” she wrote.

“Saturday morning my mum received a message via Facebook from my brother which basically said he can never see us again, that he is sorry he can’t see us one last time, that he loved us,” she later told MailOnline.

“He was upset and said that the man wouldn’t let him leave. That he was scared of him,” she added.

The number Jacobs used for the call belonged to a Cypriot tourist, who informed the family that Jacobs had approached him barefoot without a bag and asked to use his phone, MailOnline reported.

A foreign office spokesman told the Guardian: “We can confirm that a British national, Jordan Jacobs, was reported missing in Thailand on 12 December 2015. We are providing consular assistance to the family.”

British nationals make over 900,000 visits to Thailand every year, according to the foreign office. The vast majority are trouble-free.

MailOnline said Jacobs had been travelling in Australia and south-east Asia for more than a year.

The paper cited the family as saying that his disappearance is connected to the Thai man, who his travelling friends say either owns or works on a farm on the island.

“There was no more contact until Monday morning where my brother appeared online, and after few attempts a I was able to speak to him on the phone using the Facebook wifi messenger,” his sister told MailOnline.

“I was on the phone for 90 seconds. He couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me where he was.”

“I asked if he was OK, where he was, and he said ‘I’ve said too much. I can’t talk. I love you.’ And that was it. We’ve had no contact since.”

Emily Jacobs’ public Facebook post has been shared nearly 6,000 times. Photos she posted show a tanned man with long hair and beard. He has a circular tattoo on his right forearm and bands of tattoos around his left arm.