Three arrested in forgery-racket sting
Three men, seated at right, accused of belonging to a forgery racket are paraded with seized fake documents at a press conference yesterday.
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Police yesterday arrested three men for allegedly forging a large variety of documents, including passports, air tickets, visa stamps and ID cards.
Crime Suppression Division (CSD) officers first arrested Phol Sanitwong at a department store, where they found 16 fake passports of various countries with him, police said. The officers later arrested Chalerm Janphuang at another department store. Chalerm was found with three fake passports, police said. The third suspect, Bunnark Yimthep, was arrested while strolling along Lat Phrao Road. The team later searched an apartment room in Soi 41 and found 134 fake passports, along with fake boarding passes and luggage tags of IATA Airline, fake ID cards issued in Malaysia and Hong Kong, thousands of covers of passports and US Visa stamps. CSD commander Winai Thongsong said the three suspects admitted to the crime, quoting them as confessing that Bunnark was the forgery artist of the ring while Phol was charged with finding customers. The group sold fake passports at Bt8,000 apiece, or Bt1,000 for a blank passport. Most of the ring's local clients are from ethnic groups who do not have Thai citizenship. A fake Thai ID card could be bought for Bt4,000. The officer said the forged documents were of high quality and difficult to detect. Police cooperated with officials from various foreign embassies in making the arrests and seizing the fake items.
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