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9,000 counterfeit credit cards seized in Kwun Tong

Nearly 9,000 unfinished fake credit cards have been seized in a raid on a Kwun Tong flat, the largest haul of its kind in a decade.

Two people living in the public housing flat at Yau Tong Estate were arrested during the operation, carried out about 5pm on Thursday.

The cards carried the names and logos of a variety of international and Hong Kong banks but were not ready to be used.

"All are unfinished fake credit cards. No name and account details are embossed on the front," a police officer said. "They have magnetic strips on the back, but initial investigations show no bank data had been loaded onto the magnetic strips."

Police suspected the flat was not a workshop because there was no embossing machine or any of the other equipment needed to make the forgeries.

The officer said the cards were probably smuggled into Hong Kong from the mainland.

Police arrested a 48-year-old man and his live-in girlfriend, 38, for possession of a forged instrument. The raid was launched after crime-squad officers from the Kwun Tong police station received a tip-off.

Police did not provide an exact figure for how many cards were found in the flat, and only said it was nearly 9,000. The figure is three times the number of cards police seized last year, when 3,051 fake cards were discovered and in 2010 it was 611.

The Commercial Crime Bureau is now investigating the source of the cards and whether other people are involved.

A police source said a bogus credit card encoded with bank data could be sold for thousands of dollars.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: 9,000 fake credit cards seized in Kwun Tong
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