Bangkok (VNA) - Thai police have arrested one Chinese national and three Thai suspects accused of stealing the credit card data of about 1,200 Chinese tourists at shops in Bangkok and Chiang Mai before producing counterfeit cards to fraudulently obtain around 30 million THB (920,000 USD).
Police said the Chinese man and three Thai suspects were arrested last week after the Chinese embassy sought legal action against criminals who had misused stolen credit card data from 1,200 Chinese tourists in Thailand. They were part of a criminal network operating in China, Thailand and the US.
Police said the gang used the data to forge fake cards, which were then used to purchase luxury goods and withdraw cash.
On July 22, police searched the shops and the suspects' three houses. They found 11 computer keyboards equipped with card skimmers, three electronic data capture (EDC) devices, five computers and 18 surveillance cameras. The suspects were arrested.
Shop staff told police they were ordered to run clients’ UnionPay cards twice, once through a skimmer-equipped keyboard and the other with EDC readers. If clients became suspicious, asking why the cards were run twice, employees would tell them it was necessary to give them a 32% discount.
The stolen data was sent via the LINE chat app to accomplices in the US, along with the PINs recorded by the many surveillance cameras aimed at clients when they entered the codes. The data was used to forge cards in the US./.
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