A filling station employee has admitted allowing the chip and PIN machine at a Northampton petrol station to be used in an international fraud to clone hundreds of credit cards.
Suntharam Thevaratnam, who was a member of staff at the Shell garage on the A45 near Wootton, admitted involvement in a fraud which ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The Sri Lankan-born employee, who is now a British national after claiming asylum, worked at the garage, which was hit by a spate of credit card 'skimming'.

The 33-year-old, of Birchfield Road, Abington, appeared at Northampton Crown Court yesterday and pleaded guilty to fraud, committed between November last year and January.

Speaking via a Tamil interpreter, he admitted failing to intervene or inform his employers when the chip and PIN machine was doctored, exposing the company and customers to fraud.

John Lloyd-Jones, prosecuting, said the full extent of the fraud was unknown, with cloned cards used in Dubai and Canada.

He added: "Several hundreds of thousands of pounds has been obtained in other countries by fraud using details cloned from cards used at this garage.

"He allowed it to happen and did not tell him employer. He let others install a device to read the cards."

Mr Lloyd-Jones added: "The Crown says this man is at the bottom end of the chain but we do not accept his claims of duress to explain his conduct."

Adjourning sentencing, Judge Charles Wide QC warned Thevaratnam he faced a substantial prison sentence.

He said: "There should be a pre-sentence report but he must understand that involvement, even with his limited role, a lengthy custodial sentence is inevitable."

Thevaratnam has since lost his job and initially denied any involvement until faced with the evidence including CCTV footage.

The Chronicle & Echo has previously revealed police were dealing with more than 1,100 reports of people affected by card scams at two petrol stations in the county.

Both the Wootton garage and the Shell service station on the A5 at Paulerspury were at the centre of the investigation.