Gang used devices to milk ATMs

"If they found a lot of money in the bank account of any ATM user, they transferred the money into their own bank account," Colonel Supoj Boonchudaung, superintendent of Lang Suan Police Station in Chumphon, said yesterday.

Teo Puex Heng, 43, was nabbed while preparing to travel back to his home country.

He and his two accomplices installed skimming devices on ATMs in front of the Uaychai III wholesale fruit and vegetable market so that they could steal the users' information, police said.

Many people in Lang Suan district reported to a local Bangkok Bank branch that some money in their accounts had gone missing. The reported total damage was already over Bt3 million.

Supoj and his team checked video recordings of the ATMs to look for the suspects and their vehicle.

"The licence-plate number matched one held by a car-rental company in Songkhla," he said.

Teo was scheduled to return the car to the company yesterday, and police waited for him in Songkhla.

Police were now hunting for two other suspects.

Bangkok Bank Lang Suan branch manager Sunida Sarngket said customers started aksing the bank about the discrepancies on Saturday.

"We worked with police in a bid to urgently solve the mystery as to why the money disappeared," she said.

Bank officers immediately froze the accounts after the owners made complaints or expressed concern, she said.