Police yesterday (December 31) held a press conference to showcase the suspects who were identified as 23-year-old Mr Thongtaem Bumrachaken, a Thai national and resident of Ratchaburi; along with two Chinese nationals, Mr Tang Yongjie, 39, and Mr He Haibi, also 39.
Upon arresting the men on Tuesday (December 30) Police seized evidence as follows: nine fake electronic credit cards, two Chinese passports, one notebook computer, two magnetic data recording devices used for scanning credit card information, an internet router and driver used to record credit card information, as well as 70 transaction receipts.
Police said they had been alerted by Kasikorn Bank that fake credit cards were suspected of being used between December 26 and 30 at an EDC machine located at the Ping Boom Tour company in the Moo 5 village of Wichit in Phuket’s Mueang district.
Police staked out the site and found that the two Chinese suspects had been suspiciously working with the Thai suspect, the owner of the tour company, to make unusually frequent transactions.
Police said that the men had made fraudulent transactions worth B700,000 over the past three days.
The Thai suspect has allegedly confessed to agree to being awarded 5 per cent of the value of transactions once the actual cash was transferred from the bank.
According to police, of the B700,000 transactions, only B150,000 had been transferred into the Thai suspect’s account, but luckily that money had not yet been withdrawn at the time of the arrest.
Police said the Chinese suspects admitted to coming to Phuket regularly, and that their oparation was part of ring that has been operating out of China. Investigations are continuing.