Credit card criminals get four years in jail<\/p>\n
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post\/Bandung<\/p>\n
A judge at the Bandung District Court sentenced on Tuesday two
\nmen, one of them a repeat offender, to four years in prison for
\ncredit card fraud.<\/p>\n
In the previous court session three weeks ago, the prosecutor
\nrecommended the district court sentence the two defendants, Frans
\nHarry Theosa, 47 and Arief Rusmawan, 37, to four years in prison
\nfor their crimes.<\/p>\n
The two defendants were arrested in May this year after they
\ncompleted a transaction in a garage sale shop Rangkas on Jl.
\nKarapitan, Bandung city. At first, the transaction proceeded
\nsmoothly and they spent a total of Rp 7 million (US$744.7) in two
\nseparate transactions. But the cashier found an irregularity in
\nthe bank's identity number in the two cards submitted by the two
\ncustomers.<\/p>\n
The two cards were Citibank cards, but when the cashier rubbed
\nthe card, the computer showed that the cards belonged to an
\noverseas bank.<\/p>\n
The cashier contacted the police immediately and police
\nofficers arrested the two credit card criminals.<\/p>\n
After police investigation, it was revealed that Herry, a
\nTangerang resident, was not a novice. He had been sentenced to
\nfive months in prison a few years ago in Tangerang for a similar
\ncrime.<\/p>\n
In an earlier trial session, both defendants confessed that
\nthey bought the bogus credit card from a person named Aseng, 45,
\nwho is now a fugitive, at Rp 5 million (US$532) for three credit
\ncards. The credit cards could be used to shop with a purchase
\nlimit of Rp 30 million (US$3,191) each.<\/p>\n
Despite the confession, the judge still imposed the sentence
\non the two defendants.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mu'in Fikri, the coordinator of West Java's Credit
\nCard Association, explained credit card fraud is done. \"The
\ncriminal, posing as a shopkeeper, rubs the card while the
\ncustomer is inattentive, and at the same time the shopkeeper uses
\na credit card imprinter machine to copy data in the genuine
\ncredit card to the machine and saves the data in it. He or she
\nlater shifts the data from the imprinter to a bogus credit card
\nand uses it to deceive supermarkets or shops,\" said Mu'in, who is
\nalso head of Bank BNI's Credit Card Center's Bandung branch.<\/p>\n
He welcomed the stiff punishment handed down on the two
\ndefendants, saying that the sentence could serve as a deterrent
\nfor other credit card criminals.<\/p>\n
He also called on credit card holders to be vigilant, as he
\nestimated that out of five million credit card users in
\nIndonesia, some 3,000 credit cards have been defrauded.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian Credit Card Association estimated that credit
\ncard fraud cost credit card users in the country between Rp 40 to
\n60 billion last year.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/credit-card-criminals-get-four-years-in-jail-1447893297",
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