Former restaurant employees jailed for counterfeit credit card fraud
2000-11-16
A former employee of the Jumbo Floating Restaurant (Jumbo) in Aberdeen and a woman were each sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment at Eastern Court today (Thursday) for conspiring to possess equipment for manufacturing counterfeit credit cards.
The court heard that credit card information collected by the defendants were used to manufacture counterfeit cards, which were subsequently uttered in local retail outlets, causing $425,700 losses to the card issuing banks.
The defendants were Wong Leung-piu, 25, former captain of Jumbo; and Li Wah, 29. They were former co-workers in another restaurant before Wong was employed by Jumbo.
They pleaded guilty today before Magistrate Mr Ian Candy to one joint charge of conspiring with a person nicknamed "Ah Wah" and others to have in their custody one skimmer for manufacturing counterfeit credit cards between April and June 2000.
The case arose from a corruption report alleging that some employees of Jumbo might have accepted bribes for supplying customers' credit card data to a criminal syndicate.
The court heard that in April this year, a person nicknamed "Ah Wah" approached Li Wah for assistance in capturing customers' credit card data.
"Ah Wah" offered Li a reward of $500 for each set of data captured, and gave Li a skimmer.
Li then related the message to Wong Leung-piu, who at the time was the captain of Jumbo responsible for handling relevant credit card transactions. Wong agreed to the scam and took the skimmer from Li.
"Ah Wah" subsequently contacted Wong and taught Wong how to use the skimmer to capture credit card data.
Between April and June this year, Wong captured about 30 sets of card data at Jumbo.
An alleged syndicate member later took back the skimmer from Wong. Since then, Wong failed to locate "Ah Wah" and had not received any rewards as agreed.
The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Vivian Lee.
The court heard that credit card information collected by the defendants were used to manufacture counterfeit cards, which were subsequently uttered in local retail outlets, causing $425,700 losses to the card issuing banks.
The defendants were Wong Leung-piu, 25, former captain of Jumbo; and Li Wah, 29. They were former co-workers in another restaurant before Wong was employed by Jumbo.
They pleaded guilty today before Magistrate Mr Ian Candy to one joint charge of conspiring with a person nicknamed "Ah Wah" and others to have in their custody one skimmer for manufacturing counterfeit credit cards between April and June 2000.
The case arose from a corruption report alleging that some employees of Jumbo might have accepted bribes for supplying customers' credit card data to a criminal syndicate.
The court heard that in April this year, a person nicknamed "Ah Wah" approached Li Wah for assistance in capturing customers' credit card data.
"Ah Wah" offered Li a reward of $500 for each set of data captured, and gave Li a skimmer.
Li then related the message to Wong Leung-piu, who at the time was the captain of Jumbo responsible for handling relevant credit card transactions. Wong agreed to the scam and took the skimmer from Li.
"Ah Wah" subsequently contacted Wong and taught Wong how to use the skimmer to capture credit card data.
Between April and June this year, Wong captured about 30 sets of card data at Jumbo.
An alleged syndicate member later took back the skimmer from Wong. Since then, Wong failed to locate "Ah Wah" and had not received any rewards as agreed.
The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Vivian Lee.