Police crack counterfeit credit-card ring that allegedly had post office connection

Taipei City police broke a credit-card fraud operation yesterday which involved collusion between a postman and gangsters.

More than 500 credit cards have been fraudulently used and could have caused losses of more than NT$50 million, police said.

The police discovered that Liu Chung-chieh (劉崇杰), a Taipei City postman, allegedly worked with Wu Ta-wei (巫大煒), a member of the Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) crime group to manufacture the fake credit cards.

Prosecutors and the police have arrested Liu and are currently trying to track down Wu.

Liu admitted that he had colluded with the ring since June. He said he had secretly collected the registered parcels that credit card-issuing banks sent to their customers applying for credit cards.

According to Liu's confession, Wu took the parcels and downloaded key credit card information to produce phony cards. Then they repacked the parcels before Liu delivered these mails to the addressees.

Sources said the banks issuing credit cards found out recently that many cardholders whose cards were illegally used all lived in a certain district in Taipei City.

Police then began working with the postal supervisory system to locate suspects and uncover the forgery ring.

Police said Wu, nicknamed "A-tsung" (阿聰), works in a lawyer's office on Fuhsing S. Road where he organized the forgeries.

Prosecutor Liu Cheng-wu (劉承武), who has tracked down several credit-card fraud rings, raided the lawyer's office on Thursday, accompanied by the police.

They found sophisticated counterfeiting equipment and hundreds of fake credit cards in Wu's desk drawers.

The police are investigating whether Wu had accomplices in the office.

Police officers refused to reveal which post office Liu works for, and only said that the Directorate General of Posts had helped the police crack the case.