Two Turks and four Romanians have been arrested and charged with forging ATM cards using information stolen from bank customers in Europe and withdrawing over 100 million baht from their accounts through ATMs in Thailand

Samana Baris, 34, and Karaburcak Celalettin Kursat, 35,  both Turkish, were arrested with 59 forged ATM cards by  Central Investigation Bureau police in Phuket on Saturday.

Later on Sunday, Romanian Gavrila Florin Eugen, 33, Ene Bogdan Constantin, 23, Vilvoi Claudiu Constantin, 36, and Gavrila Alexandra, 26, were detained with 211 fake ATM cards, a data card skimmer, two handheld computers, and two data storage devices.

All suspects had confessed to having used information illegally copied  from ATM cards in Europe, said Pol Maj Gen Panya Mamen, a deputy chief of the Central Investigation Bureau.

The Siam Commercial Bank had recently been notified by the British police in London of the presence of an international  gang of ATM scammers in Thailand.

The British authorities told the bank that the gang had stolen electronic information from ATM users in Britain and the other countries in Europe and used the information to produce fake cards.

They then had then travelled to Thailand and illegally withdrawn cash from the stolen accounts using ATMs - mainly  in Bangkok, Hua Hin district in Prachuap Khiri Khan and Phuket, said Pol Maj Gen Panya.

He said the total losses to the account holders caused by these  ATM fraudsters was estimated to be more than 100 million baht.

In November, 2008, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and police  charged three Thais and two Romanians with credit card fraud for installing skimmer devices and spy cameras on ATMs to copy the card data  and to see the PIN numbers of the users.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/226824/turkish-romanian-atm-forgery-gangs-nabbed