Foreign men arrested for stealing cash

Two foreign visitors to Shanghai have been sentenced to prison in Jing'an district for stealing 63,200 yuan ($10,118) with nearly 100 cloned credit cards, the local court said Thursday.

The two defendants, whom the court called Danny, 28, and Charlie, 25, both from North America, were each charged with credit card fraud for withdrawing cash with 96 credit cards cloned with other cardholders' information, according to a press release from the Jing'an District People's Court.

Police arrested Danny on December 16 as he was withdrawing cash from a bank on Shimenyi Road in Jing'an district, the court said.

Police found Danny had withdrawn 5,000 yuan with four cloned cards that day.

Police began investigating the case after a bank clerk found a cloned credit card in an automatic teller machine (ATM) earlier in December and notified police. Police were able to come up with a description of one of the defendants after examining the bank's surveillance camera footage.

Police later found the two defendants had withdrawn 63,200 yuan from the ATMs of several Chinese banks from December 13 to December 16.

Police found 463 cloned credit cards in Danny's hotel room, including 460 phony credit cards carrying the Visa and MasterCard logos.

Danny and Charlie arrived in China on November 25 on one-month tourist visas.

The court sentenced Danny to two years in prison with a fine of 20,000 yuan. It sentenced Charlie to one year in prison with a fine of 20,000 yuan. The court said it gave light sentences to the men because they confessed and returned the stolen money.

The defendants will be deported after serving their sentences.