The District Court has sentenced 37-year-old Hong Kong man and two Mainland women, aged 28 and 36, to prison terms ranging from two years to two years and eight months, for credit-card fraud.

Acting on information, Commercial Crime Bureau officers followed the three in Central and Sheung Wan on August 14, 2007. The man took the women to buy bird's nest and Chinese herbal medicine from shops in the area, using credit cards to settle payments.

The officers stopped the three in a business centre in Central and found six counterfeit credit cards in their possession.

Investigations showed the two women had arrived in Hong Kong on August 12. They conspired with the man to use the credit cards to fraudulently buy merchandise with a total value of $39,000 over the next two days, in Sheung Shui, Sheung Wan and Central.