Document forging gang arrested

PHUKET CITY: Two Burmese men and a Thai woman have been arrested for producing fake work documents to sell to illegal immigrants.

The two men, Sommay Mahapong, 24, and So (last name unknown), 25, and the woman, Nipaporn Boonbunjob, also 25, were arrested in their Phuket City apartment where document-forging equipment was also found and seized.

Pol Maj Pheeranat Chatinkaew, Administration and Crime Control Inspector of Chalong Police Station, who led the raid, said, “Officers raided the apartment while the suspects were at work making permits. A personal computer, a printer, a scanner, five rubber stamps, two mobile phones and 20 photos of migrant laborers were discovered, along with other equipment.

“Two of the rubber stamps were copies of the stamps of the Governor of Kanchanaburi and the district officer of Sangkla Buri [in Kanchanaburi Province, on the border with Myanmar]. We did not, however, find the stamp of the Governor of Phuket.

“All of the offenders have admitted their guilt and are being held at Phuket City Police Station. We also seized more than 200 pirate CDs which were to be sold to Burmese workers. The group have been making fake permits in Phuket for two years. They will all go to jail,” he added.

“My subordinates had previously checked permits held by Burmese workers but did not realize that they were fake as they looked like the real thing. I noticed, however, that something was wrong with a number of the permits held by migrant workers in Chalong and we arrested some Burmese laborers. They then led us to the source of the fake permits,” Maj Pheeranat explained.

“The accused had previously made fake documents in Bangkok before moving to Phuket. They sold the permits for 12,000 baht apiece and charged an extra 3,000 baht for the governor’s stamp,” Maj Pheeranat said.