A GANG of credit card fraudsters stole cash from the bank accounts of almost 1,000 people in Bolton, a court heard.

They stole £334,000 by using sophisticated equipment to clone the credit and debit cards of unsuspecting petrol station customers.

The gang operated from the BOC Garage in Manchester Road, Bolton and the BP petrol station in Wigan Road, Atherton, Liverpool Crown Court was told.

Another group of criminals ran the same scam in London and the two gangs were linked.

But eventually a rift developed between the two gangs which led to one of the London members being kidnapped and kept prisoner for 10 days by four of his Bolton counterparts.

Yesterday, a trial which is scheduled to last for eight weeks was opened at Liverpool Crown Court.

Rick Holland, prosecuting, said the two petrol station conspiracies led to a loss to the banking industry of more than £330,000.

He added: "Just under £250,000 of the loss arises from the fraud carried out at the BOC Garage in Bolton; 972 debit and credit cards having been compromised.

"At Snax 24 in Atherton (the BP garage) the fraud realised more than £84,000 in consequence of the misuse or compromise of 277 cards.

"Plainly the fraud at each garage generated for those involved a considerable amount of money."

The information obtained was in the main misused in countries outside the UK, where there are no chip and pin safeguards.

The court heard that in the Snax 24 garage Mirza had fitted high tech cloning equipment to read the cards in the machine, and also a secret camera in the ceiling to photograph peoples' pin numbers as they were inputting them.

The court heard that the leader of the conspiracy and possible leader of the southern gang had escaped from police and was only known by the alias "Superman". It is thought that he may be on the run and living in Dubai.

The jury was told the southern gang, which had offered to pay the northern gang £80,000 for obtaining the information, had decided that it was no longer financially viable and had sent a man called Raheel Mirza to retrieve the equipment and close the operation down.

But Mirza was kidnapped on January 25, 2007, and held against his will for 10 days after the two gangs clashed Eleven people are standing trial on charges of conspiracy to defraud.