PHUKET: A pair of Phuket City gold shop owners have announced that they will double to 200,000 baht the reward for information leading to the conviction of a man in a party mask who stole gold valued at more than five million baht at the weekend.

The man, identified as ''Mr Eak,'' wrested a handgun from the 13-year-old daughter of Jirasak and Jantana Thanetsombut at a gold shop at the Slaughterhouse Intersection, one of four gold shops the couple own in Phuket City.

Today the couple announced that they would double the reward to 200,000 baht. Phuket police would share 30 percent of the gold once ''Mr Eak,'' who wore a Starbucks t-shirt, was captured.

Khun Jirasak said that two patrol police visited the gold shop just 10 minutes before the holdup man walked in the door. He called for more patrols by police.

He said the two police who checked the Slaughterhouse Intersection shop visited a total of 67 gold shops around Phuket City, plus 35 to 40 banks and more than 100 convenience stores.

Tests of the alarm systems yesterday showed that 95 percent of the security alarms at the gold shops in Phuket City failed to work properly, Khun Jirasak said, although all the banks' alarms sounded and their security cameras were adequate.

Phuket police are intensifying their hunt by sending an officer to Surat Thani, where ''Mr Eak'' comes from, and stepping up the search for a white Honda Jazz, spotted as he made his getaway from Saturday's raid on a motorcycle that was quickly abandoned nearby.