Police arrested a man and a woman on suspicion of using cloned credit cards and ATM cards to make fraudulent withdrawals at local ATMs.
Police's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) mounted an operation, together with representatives from several financial institutions, following a report received yesterday. A 33-year-old Ghanaian man and a 22-year-old Ethiopian woman were arrested at a shopping centre along Orchard Road on 19 June at about 3pm. CAD officers seized about 90 magnetic stripe cards suspected to be encoded with stolen credit and ATM card data. Following this, CAD officers also raided a serviced apartment in the vicinity of Orchard Road and seized 780 magnetic stripe cards, a notebook computer, an encoder that was used to encode the cards and about S$10,000 in cash, believed to be proceeds from the fraudulent ATM withdrawals.
Police believe that the data found encoded in the magnetic stripe cards were stolen from outside Singapore.
Police's swift arrest of the suspects and seizure of the cloned cards have prevented further fraudulent cash withdrawals at local ATMs. Police take this opportunity to remind the public to check their bank statements regularly and to alert the financial institutions immediately if they discover suspicious transactions.
The man will be charged in Court on 21 Jun 2008 for Theft and for Accessing a Computer with Intent to Commit An Offence under the Computer Misuse Act. A person convicted of Theft can be punished with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine, or with both. A person convicted of Accessing a Computer with Intent to Commit An Offence under the Computer Misuse Act can be punished with imprisonment up to ten years, or with fine up to S$50,000, or with both.
Public Affairs Department
Singapore Police Force
20 June 2008 @ 6.30pm |