Police bust credit card fraudsters

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 21 Sept 2007

Absa investigators and police commercial branch detectives have bust a credit and debit card fraud syndicate operating in Johannesburg. This resulted in four of the syndicate's members appearing in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court.

"The commercial branch has been investigating this syndicate for the past three months," says police spokesman, director Phuti Setati.

The alleged head of the syndicate, a Nigerian national, had earlier fled his hideout in Kempton Park when he learnt of the arrest of one of his accomplices, who worked as a waiter in a restaurant.

Setati says police believe the waiter swiped customer credit cards through a reader that recorded the encoded information on the magnetic strips.

"This information was later downloaded onto a computer and used to encode and produce false credit cards. These fraudulent cards were allegedly used by the syndicate to make purchases."

The arrest led to further arrests and raids on a number of apartments. During these, detectives seized a laptop computer, a memory stick, an encoding device, a skimming device, an embossing machine, 125 white plastic cards and 47 credit cards. Software found on the laptop could allegedly be used to encode cards with information stolen through a skimming device.

Setati points out that it is illegal to possess, procure, use or distribute any device or program, such as an encoding device, skimming device or any computer software, used to overcome security measures aimed at the protection of data, such as the encoded data on a credit card.

Three Nigerian men and a South African woman were arrested. They are Olayinka Adegbenro, 37; Victoria Bidemi Okoya; Olanrewaju Adebayo, 34; and Janene Brink, 21.

Investigating officers are in the process of establishing the origin of the cards that were seized and looking at the possibility of linking the accused to other fraud-related incidents.