Background

IT was a phone call from the Co-operative Bank last Monday which alerted a man in Edinburgh that he had apparently used his credit card that day to withdraw cash in Trinidad and Tobago.

The bank told him it had refused the withdrawals because of "certain criteria" in its systems. Its call centre suggested that the card might have been copied in a rogue cash machine, or maybe a petrol station.

The card had never been used in a cash dispenser, so the recall of a slightly suspicious incident when paying at his local garage prompted the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to phone the police.

But the duty officer told him it was up to the bank to investigate it, and was reluctant to take any details.

When The Herald asked the Lothian and Borders force to look into it, a different picture emerged. The petrol station in question had been raided three weeks earlier by detectives, who had obtained evidence that the chip-and-pin terminal had been fitted with an intercepting device for a period of 15 days in March.

A filling station in central Edinburgh, which also cannot be identified, is one of the busiest in the city and handles more than 200 credit card payments a day.

But for over a week recently, its chip-and-pin terminal was copying the details of every card used. By the time a series of rogue withdrawals abroad had alerted banks, who in turn alerted the Lothian and Borders Police specialist fraud unit, the data had been removed, and the corrupt employee had disappeared.

Detective Constable Mike Harris said: "We are still pursuing the individual who fitted the device, who has fled the country."

One industry source said: "Any compromise of a site like this is alerted by a specific bank and the information is then circulated to all other banks via Apacs (Association of Payment Clearing Services). This enables all the other banks to see if their customers had used cards there.

The banks are supposed to notify both Apacs and any possibly affected customers - but not all of them do."

One major oil company commented: "Unfortunately, it is not a real-time crime - there is a time lag between the theft and the usage of the data abroad."

Meanwhile, detectives are warning that the spread of handheld credit card terminals to fast-food outlets, and even pizza delivery drivers, threatens to open up a new front for the terrorist network.

Mr Harris said: "Any retail outlet that has a chip-and-pin terminal is vulnerable, perhaps a corner shop or takeaway food premises."

"They have probably realised there is a huge market up here that can be targeted."