Lesotho man hacked Pattaya hotel's email to defraud foreigners: police

[Lite Beer]

Lesotho man hacked Pattaya hotel's email to defraud foreigners: police
The Nation

PATTAYA: -- POLICE have arrested a Lesotho man for allegedly hacking the email account of a Pattaya hotel and conning four foreigners into paying large sums for supposed room reservations, the Technology Crime Suppression Division told a press conference yesterday.

Two Thai women, Apple Mingman and Thanyaluck Khotephoothorn, whom police alleged were accomplices to Matete Lebohang, were arrested earlier, Pol Colonel Somphorn Daengdee, a deputy TCSD commander, said.

A foreigner of unknown nationality was also wanted for his role in the racket, he said.

Police arrested Lebohang at a prison in northern Bangkok recently when he visited an inmate.

Somphorn said Lebohang hacked into the email of the unnamed three-star hotel and told the foreigners to wire him a total of Bt300,000.

Police said foreign conmen often befriend or marry Thai women to use them to open bank accounts to help them commit such crimes. Conmen often use these women to withdraw money from victims from cash machines to avoid detection by banks or ATM cameras, they said.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Lesotho-man-hacked-Pattaya-hotels-email-to-defraud-30260229.html

-- The Nation 2015-05-16

[lemonjelly]

'Hacked' the email account or just knew someone who knew someone who worked there with access to the account?

[Emster23]

The headline should have read "Lesotho man, Two Thai women, hacked Pattaya hotel's email to defraud foreigners: police".

Maybe add "third person sought". No wonder some Thais "can't imagine a Thai doing xyz" as it seems press loathe to print such crimes by Thais?

Edited May 16, 2015 by petercool
edited large type

[Lupatria]

The "dark forces" stroke again.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Lupatria

[ronthai]

Now you know when the hotel emails you to transfer 300.000 baht don't do it.

What idiot would even consider send that money, FOR WHAT?

[LennyW]

Now you know when the hotel emails you to transfer 300.000 baht don't do it.

What idiot would even consider send that money, FOR WHAT?

I think if you read the article properly you will see it was a number of foreigners sending a total of 300,000 baht, not one person.

[Chao Lao Beach]

The headline should have read "Lesotho man, Two Thai women, hacked Pattaya hotel's email to defraud foreigners: police".

Maybe add "third person sought". No wonder some Thais "can't imagine a Thai doing xyz" as it seems press loathe to print such crimes by Thais?

Correct

[chasggg]

Now you know when the hotel emails you to transfer 300.000 baht don't do it.

What idiot would even consider send that money, FOR WHAT?

I think if you read the article properly you will see it was a number of foreigners sending a total of 300,000 baht, not one person.

It says four people, so that's still an average of 75,000Bt. That's an awful lot of money going to a 3 star hotel. Edited May 16, 2015 by chasggg

[RigPig]

Police said foreign conmen often befriend or marry Thai women to use them to open bank accounts to help them commit such crimes. Conmen often use these women to withdraw money from victims from cash machines to avoid detection by banks or ATM cameras, they said.

MORE foreigners corrupting poor innocent Thai women!!!

Edited May 16, 2015 by petercool
edited bold type

[WitawatWatawit]

Is this Lesotho's first international criminal?

[WitawatWatawit]

The headline should have read "Lesotho man, Two Thai women, hacked Pattaya hotel's email to defraud foreigners: police".

Maybe add "third person sought". No wonder some Thais "can't imagine a Thai doing xyz" as it seems press loathe to print such crimes by Thais?

Correct

Wrong.

[ExPratt]

The calls are the ones , impersonating Bank Fraud reps, I know an old Malaysian bloke who transferred 50.000bt into one of their accounts when they called him and said his account was being attacked and must move the money to a new account they had opened for him. They told him to go ATM and call thet would call him back He did it and it was a set up of course . Poor old Sod it was a lot of money to him

[JDGRUEN]

I don't think he hacked the people's email -- he just sent them email using a bogus email account likely having a name similar to the hotel... His cohorts got the customers email address ... this is a more likely scenario ... The customers just thought they were dealing with the hotel - similar name - -didn't check closely

[petermik]

Now you know when the hotel emails you to transfer 300.000 baht don't do it.

What idiot would even consider send that money, FOR WHAT?

Maybe for a LLT.................long long time

[Asiantravel]

" Police arrested Lebohang at a prison in northern Bangkok recently when he visited an inmate "

That's hilarious!

[Sviss Geez]

The headline should have read "Lesotho man, Two Thai women, hacked Pattaya hotel's email to defraud foreigners: police".

Maybe add "third person sought". No wonder some Thais "can't imagine a Thai doing xyz" as it seems press loathe to print such crimes by Thais?

Correct

Wrong.

Correct. The Lesotho man was the hacker who had been arrested. The report also clearly stated that 2 Thais had been arrested as accomplices, why did you choose to overlook that?

Edited May 16, 2015 by petercool
changed terms used

[Sviss Geez]

I don't think he hacked the people's email -- he just sent them email using a bogus email account likely having a name similar to the hotel... His cohorts got the customers email address ... this is a more likely scenario ... The customers just thought they were dealing with the hotel - similar name - -didn't check closely

Who was investigating this, you or the police making the arrests? The chances are that what you think is nonsense, not to say irrelevant.

[FredNL]

Hacker of an email account ??? 555555555555555555555555

I really got to go to the toilet now..........

[ggt]

When the people of Lesotho...learn to use the internet to commit crime...the world is in serious trouble...move over Russian mafia...he come the Lesothoians...

[konying]

Any hotel in year 2015 that does not have booking engine with proper check out or credit card facilities can hardly be called a hotel.

[Beng]

Scumbag.

[Monkeyrobot]

A 3 Star hotel , 300,000 baht that's 8,000 U.S.. How many people did he fraud? He no good man.

Edited May 17, 2015 by Rimmer
Racist slur

[chrisinth]

I don't think he hacked the people's email -- he just sent them email using a bogus email account likely having a name similar to the hotel... His cohorts got the customers email address ... this is a more likely scenario ... The customers just thought they were dealing with the hotel - similar name - -didn't check closely

Several ways of doing it. If the hacker/s had the Admin access information they could setup a new user with email and simply redirect to say, a google account. Only the administrator, or those with admin rights would ever know about it.

Replying to emails with an alias address isn't exactly rocket science these days, especially looking at how some sites are setup.

Plus, plus, plus.......................

[affen02]

I wonder why the immigration is not more on their marks when it comes to certain nationalities entering the Kingdom. It seems to be a lot of africans involved in atm, telephone and other money scams