A man who masterminded a huge credit card scam has been sentenced to four years' imprisonment, one year suspended, by Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Mohammed Saleem, an Egyptian, (36), of Thomas Clarke Tower, Ballymun, used a data reader to copy the details of credit cards which were then transferred to a computer and downloaded on to blank cards.
Det Sgt Ronan Galligan said the system whereby card details were copied on to a data reader was known as "skimming". It took between two and three weeks before the holders of genuine credit cards realised they had been billed for purchases they didn't make.
He said a data reader could store the details of up to 500 cards and the information was then transferred to a computer. They would then be downloaded to a device known as a reader-writer in a system called re-encoding which produced the fake cards.
Some genuine cards were "ironed" to remove their details and fake magnetic strips attached.
Det Sgt Galligan said Saleem had more than 400 cards - genuine, blank, counterfeit and altered - when he was arrested by gardaí in May 2001. Gardaí estimated that each card had a potential limit of between €10,000 and €15,000.
He used the cards to purchase up to €5,080 worth of gift vouchers from shops including Debenhams, A-Wear, Next and Brown Thomas.
Saleem, married with one son, pleaded guilty to 17 sample counts out of 44 involving cards issued by American Express, Visa and Mastercard. He has eight previous convictions in England for offences including handling stolen credit cards, fraud, forgery and obtaining property by deception.
The offences here were committed between December 19th, 2000, and May 10th, 2001. Two of the charges related to the possession of data readers at Airways Industrial Estate with intent to commit larceny on May 9th, 2001.
Seven of the counts related to various altered or counterfeit American Express, Visa and Mastercard credit cards recovered by gardaí from premises at the Airways Industrial Estate and Century Business Park.
Saleem admitted six counts of handling stolen shop vouchers recovered from his flat and to two counts of possession of a laptop computer with intent to damage the data heads on credit cards.
Det Sgt Galligan told Mr Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that Saleem was arrested at the Federal Express bureau at Dublin Airport on May 9th, 2001. Gardaí had set up a surveillance operation after learning that a package containing two data readers was to be collected.
The package was addressed to a Mr Abdul Kareem of Liberian Ltd. Saleem was searched and gardaí found three counterfeit cards in the name of M. Santos Mendez, an envelope containing five gift vouchers and a piece of paper containing three credit card account numbers.
Gardaí subsequently searched premises at Unit 2C, Century Business Park, the registered address of Liberian Ltd, where they recovered a laptop, a card reader-writer and a small, locked briefcase. The reader-writer was examined by an expert. It contained a program whereby data could be downloaded from and on to credit cards.
Various other gift vouchers were recovered at the Business Park and at Saleem's home.
The briefcase contained 416 blank, counterfeit and altered cards. Saleem accepted responsibility for all the items. .
Mr Paul McDermott SC, defending, said Saleem had a serious cocaine and gambling problem which brought great shame on him because of the culture he came from. He pleaded guilty from the start and co-operated with gardaí.
Judge Hogan described the offences as very serious and said it was obvious he had been involved in such activity for quite some time.
"It is clear that at the time of his arrest he was gearing and tooling himself for more and I just can't ignore the fact that he is not unfamiliar with such activity," he said.
He suspended the final year of the sentence because of the mitigating evidence and backdated it to the time Saleem was taken into custody last May.