Police Crackdown Foils Foreign Crime Gang

The detainees were identified as John Alexander Quintro, 29, William Alexander Baquero, 27, and Ramos Forero Rene Francisco, 30. A fourth suspect, 22-year-old Leonardo Fabio Quintero Quinones, was charged with buying stolen goods.

Police seized 41 stolen items including 12 wrist watches, mobile phones, cameras, notebook computers and gold jewellery valued at an estimated Bt800,000 (US$26,000).

Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) deputy chief Pol Maj-Gen Panya Mamen said according to intelligence, some one hundred members of Columbian criminal gang entered Thailand at one time, in at least one case coming on a chartered flight.

Once an intending criminal arrives, Gen Panya said, his Columbian passport will be morphed  into passports of other nationalities, adapting their photos and names. New identification documents are used for car rentals for committing burglaries at the residences of well to do people and breaking into people's vehicles to steal valuables. The gang also specialises in cracking automated teller machines to empty them of cash.

Gen Panya said police tracked the suspects for a period of time. In the latest case, when the Columbian gang broke into the home of a relative of a senior Interior Ministry official in Nonthaburi province the police followed the suspects to learn where they stashed the stolen goods and arrested the suspects after they noticed that they were being followed.

Further investigation led to the arrest of the fourth man whose apartment was used for keeping stolen materials, said the CIB deputy chief.