Hakkasan barman in £30,000 card skim fraud

A barman at a michelin-starred Chinese restaurant who ripped off up to a thousand diners in a credit card scam to pay for his mother's funeral was jailed for 15 months today.

Alexander mail, 29, copied customers' details with a skimming machine at Hakkasan, off Tottenham Court Road. His con cost at least £30,000, a court heard today.

It is feared that even more people could have been cheated, after the court was told that other restaurant workers may have joined the scam but were not caught. mail was paid up to £5,000 to forward data from around 1,000 victims to associates who cloned the cards. They used them all over the world to steal £30,000. Katrina Charles, prosecuting, told Southwark Crown Court that mail was only caught after customs officers arrested a man carrying several cloned American Express cards on a Eurostar train. The man was searched at Waterloo after travelling from Brussels.

Investigations led to the restaurant in Hanway Place and staff rotas pointed to mail. The barrister said: "A skimming device was recovered from his room. It was found to contain 47 sets of data which had been swiped." mail confessed all to police, but claimed he was recruited by a shadowy figure called Hassan, who gave him the skimmer. ms Charles added: "He says he would skim the customers' cards tendered for payment and he would then clone the cards, and Hassan would pay £50 per card."

The barman claimed he was due to meet the criminal that day but when officers staked out the meeting place he did not turn up.

The prosecutor added: "no one knows whether this person exists or not. Financial investigators established that the total loss to credit card companies was about £30,000."

Raphael Jerusalem, defending, said when mail's mother died in 2005, he paid for her funeral with a loan. "He found himself unable to pay," ms Jerusalem said. "As a result of that he took a very rash decision to assist in the commission of this offence." mail has since qualified as a scuba diver and hopes to join the profession when he is freed from jail.

Passing sentence Judge John Price told mail: "It was a breach of trust of the customers you served. These offences are rife - you entered into it knowing what was going to happen. They are serious matters. The custody threshold is clearly passed." mail, of Camden, admitted having an article for use in fraud between 15 January and 20 September last year.