Lankan jailed after 517 cards cloned in chip-and-pin fraud
July 10, 2011 04:50 pm
A Sri Lankan illegal immigrant has been sentenced after ripping off hundreds of customers at a petrol station where he worked in Merseyside, England.
Murugaiya Selvakumaran, 36, swapped the chip and pin machines at a Murco petrol station in Wallasey with card readers which allowed international criminals to copy customers’ cards and make fraudulent withdrawals.
The fraud only came to light towards the end of February 2009 when banks began to tell their clients they were victims of £41,500 of illegal transactions.
In total, 517 credit and debit cards were compromised.
The petrol station, in Leasowe Road, is run by a Sri Lankan family but they were not related to Selvakumaran, who gave them a fake name when he moved to Wirral from Middlesex.
Jo Maxwell, prosecuting, told Warrington crown court yesterday: “Some 200 customers of the Murco store contacted Merseyside police to let them know that a fraud had taken place.
“Their investigations, and extensive CCTV, showed all the transactions had taken place during shifts when Mr Selvakumaran was at work.”
The court heard CCTV showed him swapping the pin machines for the card readers, which were never recovered.
Ms Maxwell added Selvakumaran, who has lived in the UK for nine years, was an illegal immigrant who had exhausted all legal options to stay and had his work visa revoked.
Ken Heckle, defending, said: “He was not the brains of the operation and he has not benefited.
“This money went to other people more criminally sophisticated than himself.”
Selvakumaran, who was assisted at court by a Tamil interpreter, was caught by police in Surrey on an unrelated matter in March, the Liverpool Echo reported.
Murugaiya Selvakumaran, 36, swapped the chip and pin machines at a Murco petrol station in Wallasey with card readers which allowed international criminals to copy customers’ cards and make fraudulent withdrawals.
The fraud only came to light towards the end of February 2009 when banks began to tell their clients they were victims of £41,500 of illegal transactions.
In total, 517 credit and debit cards were compromised.
The petrol station, in Leasowe Road, is run by a Sri Lankan family but they were not related to Selvakumaran, who gave them a fake name when he moved to Wirral from Middlesex.
Jo Maxwell, prosecuting, told Warrington crown court yesterday: “Some 200 customers of the Murco store contacted Merseyside police to let them know that a fraud had taken place.
“Their investigations, and extensive CCTV, showed all the transactions had taken place during shifts when Mr Selvakumaran was at work.”
The court heard CCTV showed him swapping the pin machines for the card readers, which were never recovered.
Ms Maxwell added Selvakumaran, who has lived in the UK for nine years, was an illegal immigrant who had exhausted all legal options to stay and had his work visa revoked.
Ken Heckle, defending, said: “He was not the brains of the operation and he has not benefited.
“This money went to other people more criminally sophisticated than himself.”
Selvakumaran, who was assisted at court by a Tamil interpreter, was caught by police in Surrey on an unrelated matter in March, the Liverpool Echo reported.
