A STUDENT from Garston who helped defraud almost £250,000 by copying 120 credit cards while working in a shop at Hatfield's Galleria was jailed for 21 months on Friday.

Ross Lee, 21, of Louvain Way, admitted while working as a cashier at a clothes shop, The Design Room, he had passed customers' cards through a device which recorded the magnetic strip details so they could be reproduced on forged cards.

Between January 2001 and his arrest on April 18, 2001, he copied information used for fraudulent transactions (some in Britain, but mostley in Turkey, France and the USA) costing banks and credit card companies about £239,000.

Yet the former University of Hertfordshire media student, who originally denied the scam but changed his plea in May, told police he received just £4 per card from his accomplices.

Prosecuting barrister Myles Bennett told St Albans Crown Court: "While the customer wasn't looking, he would swipe the card through a device the size of a mobile phone.

"Only one person ever saw this device. Others said he would try to distract them.

"It became clear a number of cards with reported fraudulent spending had been used at this outlet.

"One person only used the card at this shop."

Detective sergeant George Smith of Hertfordshire Police's credit card Fraud Unit interviewed all the shop staff, and noticed the pattern of use of the copied cards fitted Lee's hours of work.

In March, another employee of the Galleria, Mr Brian Jarvis, told police he had had a conversation with Lee where the student had told him he could earn £500 a week copying credit cards.

Judge Cripps, announcing the 21-month sentence, said: "Those who go in for this form of fraud must be dealt with severely."

June 18, 2002 13:30