Credit card conspiracy man jailed
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A 32-year-old man involved in a transnational counterfeit credit card syndicate as well as possession of dangerous drugs was today (October 10) jailed for two years and two weeks.

The District Court heard that on March 3 officers of Commercial Crime Bureau conducted a covert operation at the Hong Kong International Airport to crack down on a transnational counterfeit credit card syndicate.

The officers arrested the man while he was checking in at an airline counter. A credit card shredder, three notebooks and a small quantity of herbal cannabis were found in his possession.

Enquiries revealed that the man had been recruited by a Dongguan man on the Mainland to escort a number of people to shop in Milan, Italy, in August 2007 using counterfeit credit cards.

Two of the notebooks, which contained 354 sets of incomplete credit card data, were used as ledgers for recording the fraudulent transactions in order to calculate the commission earned by each individual.

Enquiries also showed that the man was intending to travel to Milan for counterfeit credit card transactions and that the herbal cannabis was for his own consumption.

The prosecution had applied provisions of the Criminal Jurisdiction Ordinance to lay the charge of conspiracy to defraud against the man, despite the conspiracy taking place on the Mainland and the fraudulent credit card transactions would be conducted in Italy.

The man was subsequently charged and convicted and the sentence was handed down today.

A police spokesman said uttering counterfeit credit cards is a serious offence and offenders will be subject to a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment.

Police Report No.
Issued by PPRB
End/Friday, October 10, 2008
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