Hong Kong - Two Britons were being held by police in Hong Kong Monday over an alleged scam to use telephone cards to withdraw money from foreigners' bank accounts.

The two men, aged 25 and 41, were found to have the bank account details and pin numbers of 40 Britons and were allegedly using telephone cards encoded with the details of the account holders to withdraw cash from ATM machines.

The alleged scam involves programming the telephone cards, which are the same size as ATM cash cards, with the codes and pin numbers from real overseas bank accounts to withdraw money.

Withdrawals totaling more than 20,000 US dollars were allegedly made between Wednesday and Sunday using 29 different cards before the pair was arrested as they were accused of trying to withdraw more cash from an ATM machine.

A police spokesman said 48 counterfeit cards were found in the hotel room the pair were staying in, along with more than
27,000 US dollars in cash.

Police had the two men under surveillance from the day of their arrival. Most of the victims they targeted are believed to be British nationals.

In a similar case in January, two Pakistani men with British passports were jailed for 40 months each after being found guilty of withdrawing almost 50,000 US dollars from Hong Kong ATM machines using a similar scam. (dpa)