An Indian computer engineer has been arrested for hacking into computers belonging to foreign banks and using their databases to operate a credit card scam, police said yesterday.

Chiranjeet Singh, a self-professed geek, was detained on Monday and found in possession of nearly 50 credit cards, a laptop, compact disc burners and five mobile phones, according to police sources.

'We began surveillance on Singh after his name cropped up in two other credit card frauds,' said an inspector in the Delhi police special operations cell.

'We discovered that Singh and three of his friends had hacked into the computer network of global credit card companies. They used a decoder to access personal details of credit card owners and then forged fake credit cards,' the inspector said.

In the past year, police said, Singh had cheated a string of global banks. They included British-based Standard Chartered Bank, American Express, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp, US-based People's Bank and Italian banking giant Cartasi SPA Milani Bank.

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