Military police are seeking the masterminds of a plot that resulted in two foreign nationals being arrested on Friday, accused of stealing more than $130,000 from ATMs in Phnom Penh, a senior military police official said yesterday.

Brigadier General Seak Sambath, a deputy commissioner with the National Military Police, said yesterday that the unit is searching for at least two ringleaders thought to be Indian and Singaporean.

The police believe the men were behind a $133,198 heist using fake ATM cards to boost money from SBC Bank ATMs. Malaysian Delvin Joseph, 31, and Sri Lankan Aruna Salam Vinoraj, 34, were charged with theft on Friday.

“So far, we have already identified two more foreign thieves who were related to this and were behind the theft of over $130,000 from SBC in Phnom Penh,” Sambath said. “These men were thieves who had expertise in stealing money via ATMs around the world.”

Sambath identified the suspects by their aliases, saying one, nicknamed “Rej”, was a thirty-something Indian English teacher, and the other, “Male”, was a forty-something unemployed Singaporean. “They were persons who gave the fake ATM cards to the two men who were arrested,” he added, saying he expected a speedy arrest.

According to Sambath, Joseph and Salam Vinoraj were arrested after SBC found fake cards lodged in their machines, and reported the missing money to authorities.

“They were arrested by our police while they were using their fake ATM cards to withdraw moneys from the SBC ATM machines,” he said, adding that police seized a number of fake cards from the two men.