UK chip and pin fraudster gang jailed

Gang leader Theogenes De Montford was caught with 35 000 stolen credit card details, which would have potentially netted £35m at £1000 for each cloned card.

The 29-year-old software engineering graduate was sentenced this week to four-and-a-half years in prison for his role in cloning credit cards.

Three other gang members were each sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud last week.

The gang stole the credit card details by inserting devices into pin entry machines at petrol stations in Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Kent, Bristol and Sussex, the Southwark Crown Court was told.

The rogue bluetooth enabled devices were designed to transmit data from legitimate credit cards, which were used to create cloned cards to commit fraud, according to BBC news.

In February, academics raised serious questions about the security of the chip and pin payment system after demonstrating security flaws that allow criminals to make payments from a stolen card without the Pin.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge say the flaws are so serious that banks, credit card companies and retailers should consider the chip and pin system broken, until it is redesigned.

Banks have long claimed that it is not possible for criminals to make payments using stolen chip and pin cards without knowing the pin, but the Cambridge researchers have shown that criminals can use a "man in the middle" attack to trick payment terminals into accepting card payments without the four-digit pin.

Sri Lankan-born De Montford of Hayes, west London, will be deported at the end of his sentence.

Sri Lankan born gang member, Rajakumar Thevathasan, of Wimbledon will also be deported at the end of his sentence.

The rest of the gang was made up of Rashid Hassan of Anerley, south-east London and Usman Mahmood of Streatham, south-west London.

This story was first published by Computer Weekly

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