A man was yesterday jailed for 16 months after he admitted to withdrawing €800 using false credit cards he claimed had been given to him by two Romanian men.

Tsvyatko Zlatarev, 29, a homeless Bulgarian, told the police he had been approached by the men and offered €200 in exchange for using the cards at cash machines.

Police Inspector Ian Abdilla said that Bank of Valletta had alerted the police about a number of illegal transactions taking place through the cash machines. Images of men carrying out these transactions had been captured by CCTV on Saturday.

In all, four to five men were seen withdrawing the money. At one point in the course of the evening, the bank alerted the police that someone was in the process of using a cash machine in Msida but on arrival the police did not find anyone there.

However, they apprehended Mr Zlatarev a short while later after they carried out a patrol of the area, the inspector said. He added that in total some €3,600 had been withdrawn using six cards, two of which were found on Mr Zlatarev.

The accused was very uncooperative during investigations and only admitted to the crime shortly before being brought to court, the inspector said.

Magistrate Edwina Grima jailed him after taking into consideration his early admission.