NRI faces jail for credit card fraud

A non-resident Indian computer expert faces jail on charges of masterminding, along with two others, the biggest credit card fraud in Britain.

Sunil Mahtani, 26, while working for Checkline, a company that processed credit card transactions on a busy rail route, copied details of more than 8,000 cardholders to impress his girlfriend Elizabeth Ryan, a successful merchant banker who bought a house that the couple lived in, the Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court was told on Friday.

For over three years, Mahtani downloaded details of 8,790 credit cards from passengers using the Heathrow Express rail link and passed them on to his gang of 11 forgers to create fakes for use across Britain and Europe.

By the time the three-year scam was uncovered in September 2001, the gang had already stolen details of 847 cardholders, pocketing more than £2 million. It stood to make up to £20 million if all the numbers had been used, Roger Smart, for the prosecution, told the court.

The cloned cards were used to fund hundreds of illicit spending sprees in London and abroad. Much of the money went on buying large quantities of cigarettes in Belgium, which were then smuggled into Britain and sold at a huge profit. They also spent nearly £8,000 on one day alone.

Smart said 11 men, including Mahtani's co-defendants Shajahan Miah and Shaidul Rahim, both 26, had been arrested in England and Belgium after an undercover investigation by Scotland Yard's cheque and credit unit. Eight others were let out on bail.