BANGKOK: -- Police have arrested a man from Bangladesh who made hundreds of fake Western and Asian passports _ their largest counterfeit documents bust in five years.

A team from the Special Operations Police (SOP) raided the house of Mohammed Karim, 56, in Bang Kae district on Saturday.

They found a sophisticated passport-making operation and more than 1,000 finished and unfinished documents, fake visa seals and two computers in one of the largest operations of its kind ever, SOP chief Chaktip Chaichinda said yesterday.

The seized items included 577 fake passports, 680 illegal visa stamps and more than 1,600 counterfeit documents used to make fake US passports.

The Bangladeshi admitted to police that he and his partner, a Burmese man identified as Tin Oo, rented the house in Phetkasem 62 and turned it into a factory for fake passports.

They sold the passports, mostly US, French, Spanish, Belgian and Maltese, to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, Pol Maj-Gen Chaktip said.

Customers were charged between 3,000 and 10,000 baht each for the passports.

His partner is still at large, but police say they hope to arrest him soon.

If convicted, he and his friend could face up to 20 years in jail.

''This guy is rich. He has a BMW. He said he made about 300,000 to 400,000 baht per month,'' Pol Maj-Gen Chaktip said.

-- Reuters/Bangkok Post 2008-04-28