A vigilant customer spotted a card reading “skimming” device fitted to a pump at a Tesco filling station.

The equipment, which included a miniature camera, was fitted to pump 16 at Tesco in Lower High Street, Watford, by 27-year-old Sorin Marin.

Marin was part of a Romanian gang which targeted self payment petrol pumps, recording customers’ details for the cards to be cloned and used with their own PIN numbers.

Marin and another man pulled onto the forecourt of the petrol station on September 25, and fitted the device before driving off to the superstore car park without buying any fuel.

Later that same day Caroline Lovell went to fill up at the pump and noticed a suspicious looking plastic strap had fallen from the machine.

She alerted staff, who closed the pump. Moments later Marin and an accomplice pulled up in the same VW van as before and went to fill up a can from the pump. He was prevented by staff and drove off.

The police were called and a description of the van put out which led to Marin’s arrest on suspicion of fraud, in Wiggenhall Road, Watford.

A search of his home address in Waterloo Road, Romford, uncovered items for cloning credit cards.

Marin pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to possession of an article for use of fraud and possession of cannabis and sentence was adjourned to St Albans Crown Court on Friday.

His defence said Marin was a “fitter” low down in the operation who had installed two to three of the devices at various garages for about a month before he was caught.

A plasterer by trade, work dried up in the beginning of 2008 and the fellow Romanians he was sharing a home with got him involved to pay his way.

Judge Martin Griffith was told Marin had a drink problem, consuming 20 cans of lager a day, to which the judge interjected: “It amazes me how people that cannot find money for the rent always seem to find it for the beers.”

Marin was sentenced to ten months imprisonment, of which he will serve half. With 139 days on remand counting he will be out in a matter of weeks.

Judge Griffith said: “A large number of people have suffered the effects of credit card cloning. It not only allows criminals to obtain goods without paying for them, but also causes extra expense to all of us, because no doubt the credit card companies have a way of passing on those losses they suffer.”