A 24-year-old gas sta­tion cashier has been fined $30,000 af­ter he ad­mit­ted to be­ing in pos­ses­sion of a bank card skim­ming de­vice.

Mag­is­trate Maris­sa Gomez, sit­ting in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court, im­posed the fine against Jef­fery Ramkissoon, of Eighth Street, Barataria, af­ter he plead­ed guilty to the of­fence.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed be­fore sen­tenc­ing, Ramkissoon was ar­rest­ed at N Ma­haraj Ser­vice Sta­tion, lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of Pun­dit Street and El So­cor­ro Road in San Juan, ear­li­er this week.

De­tec­tives of the Fraud Squad’s ATM Task Force found a skim­ming de­vice in his pos­ses­sion and a piece of pa­per con­tain­ing sev­er­al PINs (Per­son­al Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Num­bers).

Ques­tioned by po­lice, Ramkissoon ad­mit­ted he would use the de­vice and then write down the PINs as cus­tomers were en­ter­ing them.

Ramkissoon at­tor­ney Sel­wyn Ross not­ed that his client had ex­pressed re­morse for his ac­tions. He al­so stat­ed that Ramkissoon had a clean crim­i­nal record ex­cept for two con­vic­tions for mi­nor traf­fic of­fences.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor In­sp Ra­jesh Lal asked for a hefty penal­ty to be im­posed against Ramkissoon as he not­ed that the crime was pre­med­i­tat­ed and was be­com­ing more preva­lent.

Gomez al­lowed Ramkissoon three months to pay the fine. In the event that he does not com­ply, Ramkissoon will serve two years in prison with hard labour.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed by Cpls Mo­hammed, Now­butt and PC Latch­man of the Fraud Squad.