Two Chinese men, two Thai women arrested in complex credit card scam

Thai suspects Surangkhana Boonriab, 36, and Ratchaneewan Thonawan, 41 were arrested on Saturday at their condominium in Bangkok’s Huay Kwang district.
Their alleged Chinese accomplices were arrested on Sunday at the Bangkok Ratchada Seventeen Condominium in Din Daeng district and they were identified as Sun Zhideng, 32, and Yu Peng, 36.
Police allege that the gang has been making counterfeit credit cards based on the credit card data they stole from Chinese citizens. The fake cards were then allegedly used by the Thai women to make withdrawals through automatic transaction machines.
The scheme began in 2014, causing damages worth Bt23 million to credit card companies.
Police said the two Thai women registered false shops with other people’s names and bank accounts in order to be eligible to use automatic transaction machines, electronic data capture machines (EDCs).
The two then allegedly provided the EDC machines to the two Chinese suspects, who made false purchases with the fake credit cards.
The two Chinese then sent credit card slips to the women to withdraw cash for them. The women were given a one per cent fee for each false purchase.
When police raided the condominium of the two Thai women, they found an electronic card reader/writer, 11 empty electronic cards, a notebook computer, 64 bank accounts in other people's names, 47 ATM cards belonging to other people, 15 EDC machines and 125 credit card sales slips.
Police found 150 fake credit cards, 20 credit cards belonging to others, an electronic card reader/writer machine, a notebook computer and four credit card sale slips and several more items.
Police said the two Chinese have repeatedly entered and left Thailand on tourist visas since 2014.