Suspected dollar counterfeiting ring nabbed
The Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) and Metropolitan Police arrested a handful of people after raiding a house with fake bill-printing machines and seizing 50,000 counterfeit US dollar bills.
National Police deputy chief and PCT director Pol General Damrongsak Kittiprapas said on Wednesday that members of the US dollar counterfeit ring were arrested and police seized 36,000 hundred-dollar bills.
The gang were responsible for producing 50,000 fake dollar bills worth $5 million (THB166 million).
Damrongsak said the PCT had investigated Facebook user "fact eing", whose real name is Jirapat (surname not revealed) or Fah.
The user posted on Facebook that fake dollar bills were on sale, leading the PCT and Metropolitan Police to investigate.
Arrest warrants were subsequently issued for the suspects.
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The police arrested a suspect named Pachara or Petch, then Orathai or Hong, and Sirinrat or Eed.
Pachara and Orathai confessed that they were hired by Sirinrat to sell the fake bills. Sirinrat herself confessed, but claimed that Facebook user Jirapat was the manufacturer, who had a "factory" in Nakhon Pathom.
On Wednesday, police armed with a warrant searched a house in Nakhon Pathom's Bang Len district. They found Jirapat there and seized three fake bill-printing machines and 50,000 counterfeit US dollar bills.
All were charged with counterfeiting foreign currency.
The suspects also admitted that they had other accomplices. The police are conducting further investigations.
