A SMART thief from Hunan Province who stole data from credit cards and then withdrew money from the accounts has been identified as an inventor.

Luo Gan, a high school graduate, invented four electronic devices before he was imprisoned in 1999 for installing cameras in ATM machines to steal credit card passwords and then money.

After he was released in 2003, Luo began to teach himself about credit cards, and assembled a device which could read and steal data from credit cards.

Chen Qiuzai, a friend of Luo who appreciated Luo's talents, borrowed 30,000 yuan (US$3,628) from a bank to buy Luo the required tools and then came to Shanghai with Luo for the scam.

On May 22, 2003, Luo and Chen installed a white box on the door frame of an ATM vestibule, exactly covering the security entrance slot, in the city's Nanjing Donglu. They then waited in a nearby lane.

Gu Jun, a Shanghai man, came to withdraw money and saw the white box asking him to swipe his card and enter his password to gain entrance.

He did so, but still could not get in, so he left.

Half an hour later, when Gu went to check his account, he found 10,068 yuan (US$1,200) missing and called the police.

Using the same trick, Luo and Chen stole data from some 11 credit cards in Shanghai from May to June of 2003, and then made copies of the cards, from which they withdrew more than 100,000 yuan (US$12,092) from ATM machines in Hunan Province.

Shanghai Police finally traced their whereabouts from video tapes recorded in some ATM vestibules in Hunan Province and arrested them in August, 2003.

Luo and Chen were sentenced to terms of imprisonment of 15 and 14 years respectively.