[Gymnfacymoota]

Eight people have been arrested for allegedly counterfeiting credit cards in a scam that has already inflicted losses of over NT$20 million to stores and banks, police officials said yesterday.

Chief suspect Fang Che-wei, 41, dubbed "Godfather of Fake Cards," and seven others were nabbed in operations in Taipei, New Taipei City and Kaohsiung on Thursday, officials from the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said.

Card making tools and several hundred fake cards were also seized, the officials added.

Fang was released from prison in 2009 after serving several years for counterfeiting credit cards.

According to the CIB, in March this year, Taiwan's credit card center started noticing that large amounts of abnormal transactions were made using foreign-issued credit cards.

These cards were used to buy expensive electronics products, gold and other luxury items.

After a four-month investigation, the CIB managed to identify Fang as the chief suspect from surveillance video footage collected from defrauded stores, the officials said.

The CIB believes Fang bought card holders' information from hackers.