CHIANG MAI —Two Ukrainian men were arrested for allegedly using more than 130 fake ATM cards to steal about 10 million baht from ATMs across the province.
Yevhen Hrytsenko, 27, and Iurii Korobchenko, 31, were captured at a hotel on Chang Kian Road on Sunday and brought to a news conference today.
Pol Col Weerayuth Prasobchokchai, chief of Muang Chiang Mai police station, said his subordinates were informed by the Crime Investigation Division Provincial Police Region 5 that two foreigners were using counterfeit bank cards to withdraw money from a Bank of Ayudhya machine on Chang Klan Road on the night of Oct 27.
During the arrest, police confiscated 138 forged electronic cards, 100,000 baht case, a notebook computer, a credit card scanner and two plane tickets for a flight departing Suvarnabhumi airport.
An initial investigation found the duo used electronic cards encoded with information from banks in European countries to steal money from ATMs belonging to various banks in the tourist spots across the town. The damage was estimated at 10 million baht.
Officers believe they are part of a larger ATM card-skimming gang and are examining whether the suspects had produced the forged cards in Thailand, or in a foreign country before their arrival to Thailand.
However, Pol Col Weerayuth said, police were making slow progress in the investigation because the Ukrainians did not cooperate and only spoke Russian to them.
An alleged 37-year-old Ukrainian skimmer was arrested two months ago in Chiang Mai and three others also caught in this major northern province in July.
