19 June 2006 |
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Five Singaporeans and A Malaysian Arrested
For Credit Card Fraud
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Police have arrested five Singaporeans and a Malaysian, aged between 20 years and 24 years, during our operations conducted between 18 Jun 2006 and 19 Jun 2006 against a forged credit card syndicate.
On 18 Jun 2006 at about 10.15 p.m., acting on information received, officers from the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) conducted an operation at a pub located at Rochester Park and arrested a 22-year old waiter, who was found in possession of a miniature handheld skimming device. Following his arrest, a 21-year old accomplice was arrested at his house off St Martin 's Road, where a substantial assortment of forged credit cards and stolen properties, which were believed to have been purchased with forged credit cards encoded with stolen credit card data, were recovered.
A third accomplice, a 23-year-old Singaporean man, was arrested on 19 Jun 2006 at about 6.00 a.m. at his house off Holland Grove View. During this arrest, a substantial assortment of stolen properties, a card encoder, encoding software and other paraphernalia believed to have been used to forge the credit cards were also recovered. In follow-up raids on the same day, three more suspects aged 23 years, 24 years and 20 years were arrested at South Buona Vista Road , Bugis Junction and Bukit Batok Street 22 respectively. They are also believed to be members of the forged credit card syndicate.
The stolen properties recovered by CAD worth about S$40,000 and included notebook computers, pocket computers, branded watches, mobile phones, GPS receivers, cameras, car accessories and other electronic consumables.
Five of the six suspects will be charged in Court on 20 Jun 2006 for Abetment by Conspiracy to Cheat under Section 109 read with Section 420 of the Penal Code and Unauthorised Access to a Computer under Section 4 of the Computer Misuse Act. A person convicted of cheating can be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to 7 years, and shall also be liable to fine. A person convicted of Access 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. The sixth suspect will be released on bail pending further investigations.
Police would like to take this opportunity to remind merchants, especially during the ongoing Great Singapore Sale, to be alert when processing credit card transactions. They should examine the various security features on the card face. If they are suspicious, they should contact their processing bank immediately for advice.
Police have been working closely with financial institutions and retailers to curb payment card fraud, and the arrest is attributed to the close cooperation and coordination between Police and the payment card industry.
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