London: Twenty-six-year-old NRI computer engineer Sunil Mahtani, who along with two accomplices committed one of Britain's biggest credit card frauds worth over 2.21 million Pounds, was on September 9 sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Mahtani, who on September 5 pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to defraud central clearing banks and other financial institutions, was sentenced by London's Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court on September 9.

His partners in the fraud, Shaidal Rahim and Shahajan Miah, both 26, from Enfield, North London, also pleaded guilty to one of the conspiracy counts. They were jailed for four and half years each.

Mahtani, from Watford, Hertfordshire told the court he felt so frustrated that his merchant banker girlfriend earned more than him that he teamed up with a gang of hi-tech crooks.

He then repeatedly downloaded details of credit cards while working for Checkline Plc, a company, which processed ticket purchases of Heathrow Express customers.

The information was electronically encoded on to cloned credit cards to fund hundreds of illicit spending sprees in the UK and abroad.

During the trial, prosecutor Roger Smart, prosecuting, said, "This is the largest credit card fraud investigated to date by any police force in the UK." He estimated that if the gang had not been caught when they were, the financial damage could have reached 20 million Pounds.

Mahtani also admitted to two charges of making indecent photographs of children and two of possessing pictures with intent to distribute.

PTI