The perpetrators await
processing at the Pattaya police station.
Boonlua Chatree
A Middle Eastern French national out on bail for
electronic fraud charges was arrested again, this time for allegedly using a
fake passport.
Ahmed Houachem, 35, was charged with illegally entering
Thailand under the assumed name “Samir Raihane.” He and fellow French
national Nagim Hassaina, 33, were captured in their hotel rooms in north
Pattaya Jan. 14. A team of Pattaya, Chonburi Provincial and Immigration
Department Transnational Crime investigators seized 31 fake credit and ATM
cards and 125,000 baht from the two men and their belongings.
Police claim the two men confessed to being part of a
larger credit-card crime ring and worked for 30 percent of whatever cash
they withdrew. To date, they’d taken more than 10 million baht out of
machines from Chiang Mai to Phuket, police said.
Thai courts, however, allowed Houachem to go free on bail
and, Pattaya Police allege, he went back to stealing from area ATMs. Police
have photos of him withdrawing cash, but not enough evidence about the cards
used to arrest him.
Houachem was arrested along with two other Middle Eastern
men carrying French passports - Malik Zitouni, 27, and Frank Israel
Amsellem, 31 - when police detected marijuana use in their room at Jomtien
Beach’s White House motel. Police arrested Zitouni and Amsellem on charges
of possessing and Class 5 narcotic, then discovered Houachem when they
searched the two drug suspects’ room.
Houachem this time was denied bail.
