At 1:00am on February 15 police arrested two foreign nationals after discovering that they were hacking ATM cards and credit cards with a skimmer in order to withdraw money from ATM machines throughout Pattaya City. This has resulted in more than 50 victims losing a total amount of more than 50 million baht.
The officers verified this from several ATM machine CCTV recordings, and discovered the criminals’ images before moving in to arrest them.
French nationals Alexandre Giro Zinno and Ali Ennouri (seated) are held for questioning at Pattaya Police Station following their arrest on Feb. 15.
The officers found both criminals at an ATM machine at the Nipa Lodge T-junction beside the beer bar group at the entrance of Soi 9 on Pattaya Beach Road.
They were identified as being French nationals: Alexandre Giro Zinno and Ali Ennouri.
After searching them, the officers found 1 small orange notebook, 2 credit cards in the name of each man, 1 skimming machine, and 1 luggage card from the Holiday Inn Hotel in Pattaya.
Both men were transferred to the Pattaya Police Station for further investigation.
The detained Frenchmen both denied all of the allegations and refused to give statements. However, the officers had enough evidence from the victims and the CCTV images. They were charged with cooperatively-possessing tools or a skimmer, before being transferred to the investigator for procedures according to the law.
Pol. Col. Theerapol Jindaluang (Deputy Commander of the Provincial Police in Chonburi) explained that the criminals hacked other ATM card information, before saving it onto their own credit cards and further using it to steal money from ATMs.
The gangs generally stood behind their victims who were in line to use the ATM machine, and helped them with the ATM cards. They immediately observed the codes and recorded them into the skimmer machine and hacked them as previously stated.
All ATM machine users are reminded to be careful of people standing beside them while withdrawing money from an ATM machine.
