The Police have arrested a 27-year-old man for suspected possession of cloned payment cards and equipment for making cloned cards.
On 7 February 2023, the Police received a report that a cloned metal card had been used to make an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawal.
Through follow-up investigations, officers from Commercial Affairs Department established the identity of the man and arrested him on 16 February 2023. The man is believed to have copied the payment card details from the magnetic stripes of more than 60 original payment cards and later encoded them into blank metal cards which he had bought online. Besides copying the payment card details from the magnetic stripes, the man is believed to have removed and transferred the Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) chips to the blank metal cards. A laptop, two notebooks, an assortment of blank metal cards, an engraving machine, a card encoder, a Point-Of-Sale (POS) reader machine and some cloned metal payment cards were seized as case exhibits. Police investigations are ongoing.
The offence of possessing machines and equipment, which to a person’s knowledge, has been specifically designed or adapted for the making of any false instrument under Section 473A of the Penal Code 1871, carries an imprisonment term of up to five years, a fine, or both. The offence of possessing a forged valuable security under Section 474 read with Section 467 of the Penal Code 1871 carries an imprisonment term of up to 15 years and a fine.
The Police take a serious view of any person who may be involved in the production and possession of cloned payment cards, and perpetrators will be dealt with in accordance with the law.
Case Exhibits Seized
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
17 February 2023 @ 8:35 PM