The owner of a petrol station at the centre of an international credit card cloning scam has claimed an eastern European gangsters are behind the thefts.
Vijay Agni owns the Jet petrol station in Kingston Road, Ewell, where customers have claimed thousands of pounds have been stolen directly from their accounts in a global fraud.
Mr Agni, 53, who has owned the garage for three years, said he was furious at the gangsters who had made his life a misery.
He said people would only now pay with cash, for fear of having their cards cloned.
"I wish capital punishment could be brought back for these people. If I could catch them I would string them up," he said.
"They're eastern European. It's organised crime. It's giving us a bad reputation and understandably so. A lot of our customers who have been affected have come in and asked me what's going on and I've sat down and explained it to them. They're continuing to come in but just pay with cash which is fine with me."
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Mr Agni said the criminals, who could have links with Russian mafia, parked up nearby and used a laptop with a wireless router to glean all of the information they needed as customers innocently used the chip and pin machines.
"I wish capital punishment could be brought back for these people. If I could catch them I would string them up."
The gangs then auctioned off the details and sold them to the highest bidder, resulting in details being sold all around the world.
"We're so wary now, we're watching people like a hawk," Mr Agni said. "My staff check the premises every day. It affects the morale of the staff and that's a big worry.
"If people are sat on our forecourt for longer than a minute we ask them what they're doing. We've had some genuine people who have been offended by it but once we told them what we're doing they were fine.
"It makes me suspicious of everyone though. These people are using advanced technology.
"The Chinese Triads use something similar with mobile phones. It's quite worrying."
Mr Agni said his staff regularly scanned the busy forecourt, which sells 100,000 litres of fuel a week, to check no devices had been planted.
"Other garages in the area have also been affected. It's not just us," he added.
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