The Lumpini and Sutthisarn police jointly arrested Vidi Ped Henry Contolaise, 30, at a hotel in Soi 20 Mithuna at 1am on Thursday morning, based on information provided by the FBI. The officers later arrested Mukunda, 32, and Lutete Maumbi, 31, at an apartment in Soi Lat Phrao 80. Police seized ¤40,000 (Bt1.89 million) in cash, eight fake passports plus many bank books issued by local commercial banks - containing up to Bt40 million.

The three suspects confessed to the document forgery charge, while police are compiling more evidence to press the information theft charge against them.

Quoting Contolaise, police said the three belonged to a crime syndicate known as BASE, which mainly stole online information from overseas banks through systems intrusion. They later faxed bogus requests citing authentic reference information they had stolen from the banks, asking customers to transfer money to an account they had opened at a Siam Commercial Bank branch in Surat Thani province.

Police said the FBI began tracing the group's activities after many bank customers based in New York lodged complaints with a local FBI office saying around US$20 million (Bt748 million) had gone missing from their accounts.