Police probing a credit card cloning gang in Torquay say similar offences have been uncovered across Devon, including one in Totnes.They fear the hi-tech hole-in-the-wall raiders could have bagged tens of thousands of pounds with offences 'snowballing' once unsuspecting victims receive their latest bank statements.
Detectives revealed yesterday that false fronts had been fitted to a cashpoint machine at the Nationwide Building Society in Torquay's Union Street between May 12 and Wednesday this week.
They have also revealed that an attempt was made on May 26 to fix one of the sophisticated pieces of gadgetry to a similar machine at the Nat West Bank just 100 yards away.
Torquay CIT's Det Insp Paul Jones said: "The machine was damaged because we believe someone was messing about with it with a view to fixing a copying device."Certainly the matter has been added to our inquiry.
"He confirmed that similar cloning-related incidents over the last few weeks were being investigated in Totnes and in Exeter, Plymouth, Barnstaple, Sidmouth and Ilfracombe.
The Totnes incident happened at Barclay's Bank in High Street at 5.30am on April 15 when three men in hooded tops were seen trying to remove an anti-skimming device from the bank's ATM.
At least three people had their cards cloned from the same machine in 2004.Last month's incident was logged by police as criminal damage. The crime reference number is JS/08/457.DI Jones said:
"At the moment we have no way of telling how organised the gang is. That's what we are trying to get to the bottom of. Once we know this it will influence how we progress the matter."He conceded that the number of offences could well snowball once account holders received their statements over the coming weeks.But for the moment the suspicion was that the gang had creamed off tens of thousands of pounds from accounts across the county.
BY PAUL JAMES
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