Lankan appears in UK court over credit card fraud

   
To the residents of his small UK village he was their friendly garage worker who served them groceries and petrol every week.
But beneath the petrol station counter Abdul Samad Mohamed Raik was actually taking part in a worldwide scam that would see their bank accounts emptied without their knowledge. Secretly using a fake card-reader, Raik, 33, was able to copy the card details of hundreds of unsuspecting locals visiting the petrol station in sleepy Houghton-on-the-Hill in Leicestershire.

Leicester Crown Court heard how the details of more than 500 cards were used to steal a total of £175,000 in a worldwide fraud.

Although some were refused, cash withdrawals were successfully made in countries including Australia, India, Canada and the Philippines.

Justin Wigoder, prosecuting, said the owner of Houghton Garage, Jim Funnell, had no idea what was going on while Raik was at the till.

Raik worked at the Jet filling station and its shop for 13 months and carried out the fraud between October and December last year.

He left his job at the end of 2007 when the scale of the scam became clear to shocked villagers - but gave himself up to police in March.

He claimed he became involved after running up a debt with a loan shark who was linked to the Sri Lankan guerrilla group the Tamil Tigers. Raik, a Sri Lankan national, told police he was given the cloning equipment and ordered to use it to pay off what he owed - and more besides.

The organisers also provided him with a fake Indian passport and told him he could use it to flee the country afterwards, he claimed.

Raik, of Rushey Mead, Leicester, admitted obtaining property by deception and was jailed for two years and nine months.

Passing sentence, Recorder Duncan Smith said he could easily have destroyed Mr Funnell's business by involving the garage in his crimes.

He added: 'It was a gross breach of trust to your employer, who relies on the good faith of his staff and on the custom his customers bring him.

'It was a huge fraud. One doesn't know how badly his business will be affected or if some people will choose to go elsewhere for their petrol.'

In fact, the residents of Houghton - which has a population of less than around 1,500 - have rallied around Mr. Funnell since the offences came to light.

Mr Funnell, 51, said at the time: 'We have been the centre of a scam that has affected every house in the village - probably hundreds of people.

'Most of Houghton and east Leicestershire have been wiped out, and some people have lost large sums.

'We think the information must have been E-mailed all around and then sold on, because the cards have been used in all sorts of countries. There's hardly a household that hasn't been affected. The pub landlord says he'll have to start offering credit because no-one has any money left.'

Residents admitted they were amazed by the extent of the cloning.

Ray Smith, 63, a  managing director, said: 'The crooks were very persistent. They tried three times in one minute and were blocked, but then I was hit again a day later and lost £600 in Canada.'

Raik, who also admitted possessing a false passport, first applied for entry into the UK as a student in 1999 and was allowed to stay until 2006.

He then applied to remain as the spouse of a Latvian national, but the application was withdrawn. His immigration status is now under review. Recorder Smith told him: “Your involvement in this fraud was brought to an end by yourself after a relatively short period of time.

“Even though you had the wherewithal to spirit yourself away, you handed yourself in to the police. You made a clean breast of what you had done.”