Malaysian arrested for hacked credit cards in Phuket

PHUKET: Tourist Police arrested a Malaysian man at Phuket International Airport this weekend for having hacked credit cards in his possession.

Mohd Jaris Tan Bin Abdullah, 50, was arrested shortly after landing on board AirAsia flight FD3017 at 5:05pm, said Phuket Tourist Police Chief Urumporn Koondejsumrit. The arrest followed a tip-off by Kasikornbank (Kbank).

“When he arrived, we searched him and found several fake credit cards in his possession,” Maj Urumporn said.

The credit cards, originally issued legitimately by HSBC, Citibank, OCBC Bank and American Express, had been modified and encoded with information from other people’s accounts.

“We also found bank slips issued by Bangkok Bank and KBank on him,” Maj Urumporn said.

“We checked his mobile phone and found that he had used the online chat application WeChat to receive orders from people for expensive handbags.

“We believe that he used the credit cards to buy those items and sell them for cash when he returned to Malaysia.”

Records showed that the Malaysian had travelled to Thailand seven times in February, Maj Urumporn noted.

— Kritsada Mueanhawong