Two jailed for fake credit cards used to top-up Oyster travel cards on DLR
Two men who set up an illicit credit card factory to ‘clone’ 2,000 bank cards have been jailed for 2� years each.
They were caught using the counterfeits on the Docklands Light Railway in east London to top-up their Oyster cards.
Ke He and En Chen were sentenced yesterday (Mon) after earlier admitting five charges of possessing an article for use in fraud.
The men were caught when British Transport police received information from TfL that Oyster travel cards had been topped up using fraudulent bank cards at East India DLR station in January.
Detectives tracked the two down after studying CCTV footage that showed 28-year-old He and 23-year-old Chen topping up the cards at the machines.
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The times of the fraudulent transactions coincided with the men recorded on CCTV using the ticket machines.
Officers waited at the station and recognised both men passing through the barriers and arrested them.
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The pair were searched and He was found to have 15 counterfeit banks cards on him.
They were taken back to their address nearby at Newport Avenue in Blackwall, where officers found two padlocked suitcases which were opened with keys found on He. Inside the suitcases were items used to clone bank cards, embossing equipment, laptops and silver and gold foil.
Bank cards were at several stages of manufacture. Finished cards were hidden in cigarette packets and tins. There was a drawer of blank cards ready to be embossed.
The two admitted the frauds when they appeared before Highbury magistrates on March 5 and were committed to Blackfrairs crown court for sentencing.
Det Sgt Neil Black said after the court hearing: “We seized 2,000 counterfeit banks cards and two laptops as irrefutable evidence—the duo had little option but to plead guilty.”
The cloned credit cards were encoded with details stolen from unsuspecting card users, which detectives said looked authentic and worked like genuine cards.