Credit card fraud is now so widespread that the message must go out to fraudsters that they will receive prison sentences even if it is their first offence, Judge Gerard Haughton said yesterday.
He was speaking after he gave a man two weeks to tell gardaí who supplied him with a stolen credit card or face nine months imprisonment.
Adebisi Adenise (29), Earlsfort Road, Dublin, pleaded guilty to uttering a forged credit card slip at a Rathmines phoneshop on December 5th last.
Dublin District Court heard he claimed to have been given the card by "a man in a pub" whose name he did not know.
Judge Haughton said he would consider dealing with him through community service if he tells gardaí where he got the card from.
"I do not accept that he met somebody in a pub and that he does not know where it came from".
Credit card fraud is similar to drug dealing in that it is organised by bosses who get young people with no criminal records to do their work for them, the judge said."They are told they are unlikely to be caught and if they are that they will be dealt with leniently".
He said it is a crime that requires organisation and planning and in Mr Adenise's case, he was somebody with a good education who knew what he was doing.
"The message has got to get out that if you involve yourself in this situation, you will go to prison even if you have no previous convictions. Credit card fraud is becoming endemic in this country and elsewhere," he said.
Judge Haughton remanded Adenise on continuing bail to October 10th.