Huai Yai, Bang Lamung District, Chonburi
Five days, 200 searchers, and a motorcycle buried in two pits
By Genext Information Systems Staff
Published 30 July 2026 • 6 min read
The Pattaya news story dominating Chonburi this week began with something entirely ordinary: two young people leaving the house at four in the morning to go to a convenience store. Diana Nazimova, 22, and her 17-year-old brother Roman have not been seen since. On Wednesday, searchers digging in forest a few kilometres from their home found the rented motorcycle they had been riding — taken apart, and buried.
Five days into the search, police have a recovered vehicle, hours of CCTV, a message the older sibling sent before contact was lost, and no trace of either of them. This is what has been established, what remains unverified, and why it has become the most closely followed Thailand news story of the week.
The last confirmed sighting
A village gate, a motorway underpass, and a two-minute conversation with someone nobody has identified.
The siblings left the family home in Moo 7, Huai Yai subdistrict, Bang Lamung district — the semi-rural belt inland from the beach that most visitors never see. According to their mother, they said they were going to a nearby shop. They were dressed casually and carrying their phones. They were riding a rented black-and-grey Honda ADV bearing the Chonburi plate 4กษ 6379.
CCTV recorded them leaving the village at 4:02am and turning onto the Ban Amphoe–Chak Ngaeo road. Cameras picked them up again beneath the Chak Ngaeo motorway bridge, where they stopped and spoke with an unidentified person for more than two minutes. A second motorcycle then appears in the footage, following them closely at several points. Near an intersection under the bridge, all of them pass out of camera view.
Before contact was lost, Diana sent a message saying she believed she and her brother were being followed. Thai outlets have reported that her phone also flagged an unrecognised Bluetooth tracking device nearby. Both phones were switched off shortly afterwards.
Their mother, Sarina Nazimova, 40, searched for them herself before filing a missing-person report at Huai Yai Police Station. Speaking through an interpreter, she said the family has been living in Thailand since 2018 and that her children joined her in 2021 and went to school in Pattaya. Neither speaks Thai. She said she has not been able to eat or sleep.
The case in numbers
- 4:02am — time CCTV shows them leaving the village
- 2 — pits, roughly 100 metres apart
- 200+ — personnel in Wednesday's search
- 4 — men reportedly seen digging the night before
- 038 110 333 — Huai Yai Police Station tip line
A tip-off, an old cemetery, and disturbed ground
Officers went in expecting the worst. What came out of the soil was the motorbike.
Around midday on Wednesday, an assistant village headman named Jakkrit, 56, contacted police. Residents had told him that four men with digging equipment had been working near the old Thung Luang cemetery, close to the Chak Taeng intersection, at about 10pm the previous night. He went to look, saw the group, and chose not to approach them. By the time officers arrived the men had gone.
Searchers found two patches of freshly disturbed ground roughly 100 metres apart. Fearing they had found a burial site, they excavated both. Instead they recovered the components of a dismantled motorcycle. The registration plate had been cut into pieces and buried with the rest. Officers confirmed it was the Honda ADV the siblings had rented.
Police, Bang Lamung district officials and rescue volunteers from the Sawang Boriboon Thammasathan Foundation then divided the surrounding forest into zones and searched for more than three hours. More than 200 people took part. Divers were sent into a nearby pond. Nothing further was found.
Where the investigation stands on day five
On Thursday the search resumed under Pol Maj Gen Kiatisak Sathong-oi, investigative commander of Provincial Police Region 2, concentrating on tambon Na Jomtien in Sattahip district and tambon Huai Yai in Bang Lamung. Two sniffer dogs were given clothing supplied by the siblings' mother and taken to a pond and a derelict building in Na Jomtien.
Officers surrounded a house in Bang Lamung on Wednesday intending to detain two men thought to be connected to the disappearance, but the occupants had already left. A local resident living near the excavation site has been questioned. Separately, a member of the public reported seeing the siblings' motorcycle in the hands of a man who said he had accepted it as settlement of a 60,000-baht debt; police are checking that account and have not linked it to the disappearance.
Several Thai outlets have named a motorcyclist said to appear in the CCTV footage and have published claims about his criminal record. Police have not identified him as a suspect and have not confirmed any connection. ThaiThuk is not repeating those claims as fact, and no one has been charged.
Why this Pattaya news story hit so hard
Pattaya has a long-established Russian-speaking community, and Huai Yai in particular has filled up over the past decade with families who moved for the cost of living, the schools and the weather rather than the nightlife. The Nazimovs were not tourists. They were residents — the ordinary, unremarkable version of living in Thailand that rarely makes the news.
That is a large part of why the case has travelled so far. It does not fit the usual template of a Pattaya Thailand crime story. There is no bar bill, no late-night dispute, no viral clip of a fight. There is a convenience-store run at four in the morning and a young woman texting that she thinks someone is behind them.
It is worth keeping the scale honest. Chonburi is home to well over a million residents and receives millions of visitors a year, and violent disappearances of this kind are genuinely rare. Nothing established so far changes the practical things to do in Pattaya, the answer to the best time to visit Thailand, or how Thailand visa rules work for anyone planning a trip. What it does do is remind long-term residents that the quiet inland sois are not automatically safer than the busy ones.
What a useful Thailand travel guide would say here
Very little of the standard advice is relevant to a case like this, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But two details in the reporting are worth carrying with you anywhere, whether you are on a budget travel Thailand trip or ten years into living here.
The first is location sharing. Diana's message that she thought they were being followed is the only real-time information investigators have from either sibling. Live location sharing with one family member costs nothing and would have given police a map instead of a sentence.
The second is the phone alert. A device flagging an unknown Bluetooth tracker nearby is a warning most people would swipe away. Both iOS and Android surface these automatically; the alert is worth taking seriously, particularly late at night on a quiet road.
Beyond that: tell someone where you are going, even at 4am, even for five minutes. Rental vehicles in Chonburi should be photographed with their plates before you ride off. And if someone you are responsible for does not come back, report it immediately — the CCTV that carried this investigation only exists because officers requested it while it was still on the servers.
An open search, not a conclusion
As of Thursday evening, Diana and Roman Nazimov have not been found. Police have recovered their vehicle and are working through CCTV, phone records and interviews across two districts. No arrests have been announced and no one has been charged. Everything else circulating is either unverified or explicitly unconfirmed by investigators.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Huai Yai Police Station on 038 110 333, which is taking calls around the clock. ThaiThuk will update this Pattaya news report as the investigation develops.
Planning ahead
Know the ground before you get here
Whether you are pricing a fortnight or a year, ThaiHolidayBudget works from 2026 numbers, and ThaiTripPlanner will build the days around it.
Price out your trip →
Written by
Genext Information Systems Staff
ThaiThuk's editorial team at Genext Information Systems — writers and long-term residents based in Thailand who report from the ground on Thai culture, travel, food and community. Every piece is checked against primary sources and updated as details change. More about ThaiThuk →
Sources
- The Pattaya News — "Police Intensify Search for Missing Russian Siblings Near Pattaya", 28 July 2026, and "Over 200 Police Officers and Locals Comb Area Near Pattaya", 29 July 2026.
- Khaosod English — "More than 200 search for missing Russian siblings after motorcycle found buried in Chonburi", 29 July 2026.
- The Thaiger — "Suspect emerges as search for missing Russian siblings in Pattaya continues", 29 July 2026.
- Bangkok Post — "Search continues for Russian siblings missing from Pattaya", 30 July 2026.
Note: outlets differ on the older sibling's given name (Diana / Iana), on the surname form used for her brother (Nazimov / Nazimova), and on the motorcycle model (Honda ADV 150 / 160). Claims about a named motorcyclist and his alleged record come from Thai media reports; police have not identified any suspect, no arrests have been announced and no one has been charged. This report will be updated as verified information emerges. Photographs are credited to The Pattaya News.