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Lavrov raises issue of Russian citizen arrest in Thailand on ASEAN summit sidelines

A Russian citizen was detained in Thailand at the U.S. request on charges of stealing money from bank accounts of Americans

VIENTIANE, July 26. /TASS/. Russia raised the issue of arrest of Russian citizen Dmitry Ukrainsky at the FBI request in Thailand in contacts with the Thai side on the sidelines of the events of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"This is not a subject of relations between Russia and ASEAN," he said, answering a question whether this matter was touched upon at the Russia-ASEAN ministerial meeting in Laos. "It’s a matter of our relations with Thailand, so we raised this issue in talks with our colleagues from Thailand," Lavrov said.

Thailand’s newspaper the Nation reported previously that the Thai police arrested at the FBI request Russian citizen Dmitry Ukrainsky, 44, and citizen of Uzbekistan Olga Komova, 25, who are suspected of stealing $28.5 million from bank accounts of citizens of several countries. Tourist Police Commander Pol Maj Gen Surachet Hakphan said that the Russian man was arrested in Pattaya where he has been running several firms renting yachts to tourists. The Uzbekistani woman was arrested at a hotel on Koh Chang where she has been working, the publication says.

Surachet said the two suspects were engaged in sending malware to emails of their victims and the malware sent back usernames and passwords of online bank accounts in the United States, Australia, Japan, Britain, Italy and Germany. The FBI has traced the transactions and found that they were wired to Thailand, so the FBI sought help from the Immigration Bureau to arrest the two suspects, according to the newspaper.