Police announced yesterday they have detained four local men accused of ripping off up to one million yuan (US$120,482) by overdrafting credit cards registered with stolen personal information.

　　Police raided the suspects' hideout in Luwan District on May 12, capturing all four members of the alleged crime ring together with more than 30 credit cards and complete copies of personal information belonging to more than 50 different individuals.

　　Police say the four suspected swindlers were all in their early thirties and had previously been sentenced to jail for fraud.

　　The suspects allegedly stole the name of an existent local company to post recruitment advertisements in the city over recent months, requiring job applicants to attach photocopies of their identification cards to their resumes.

　　They then succeeded in applying for more than 30 credit cards after opening up employees' accounts at different local banks in the name of the company.

　　"Unlike individuals who must go to bank by themselves to apply for the cards, corporate client can open accounts for their employees after submitting photocopies of their ID cards," said an officer surnamed Zhang, with the Luwan police.

　　The police were finally alerted on April 30 by one of the cheated banks who noticed suspicious overdraft records during a short period. All the suspicious overdrafts involved credit cards from the same company and most of the cards had been used to buy goods at a downtown shopping mall.

　　After scouting the mall for several days, undercover cops noticed the four men who had used credit cards several times to purchase gold bars and other golden items.

　　They then traced them to their hideout on Ruijin Road and caught them several days later after they gathered enough evidence.

　　None of the job applicants who had their identities stolen realized there was a problem before they were contacted by police.