Payment Cards: Malaysian police foil credit card gang
In an object lesson on how to get caught, a man has allegedly used a stolen credit card to book hotel rooms - and then a week later returned to the same hotel and checked in using another stolen card. This time, the hotel called the police...
Two men were arrested, one aged 38 and one aged 40. They were held for five days while police investigated the contents of a laptop computer found in the hotel where the man had booked three rooms. Based on information found in the laptop, the police raided a house some 25km away from the hotel.
There they found computers, printers, embossing machines and some 2,300 fake credit cards produced using the information from stolen cards, it is alleged. Three more people were arrested.
Several foreign passports were seized as well as two cars, one of which was registered in Singapore suggesting that at least some of the cloned / stolen cards were on their way there.
One of those arrested was recently released from jail in Macau for using fake credit cards, say police.
One of those arrested disappeared after being granted bail and the police are searching for him.
The gang profited from the fake cards by buying goods - often those with famous brands - and sold them, the police allege. The gang, they say, has been operating since 2006.
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