Dec 04, 2008 - 11:29 AM

By Jeff Mitchell

OSHAWA -- Five men who came to court to support friends busted in a debit card skimming operation wound up behind bars themselves when cops identified them as accomplices in the scheme.

"I think they were pretty surprised," said Durham police Detective Jeff Caplan of the five GTA men, who were busted in the lobby of an Oshawa courthouse Wednesday.

Det. Caplan and his partner Mark Stone were at the courthouse, at 242 King St. E., for a series of bail hearings for seven men busted last week on fraud charges relating to the theft and use of debit card data skimmed from an ATM. A number of people were at the courthouse to show their support for the accused men, Det. Caplan said.

"They had probably about a dozen supporters," he said.

Some of the faces were familiar to the cops, Det. Caplan said. They retrieved a number of pictures -- the images were photos of suspects using forged debit cards at ATMs across the GTA -- and used them to identify five suspects who had previously been unknown to the cops.

Five men in their 20s from Toronto, Ottawa and Markham were charged with fraud-related offences -- and taken to jail to await bail hearings.

Police arrested the first seven suspects last Saturday after tracking their movements in Whitby, following them to a motel room where investigators seized a stolen debit pin pad. But even as the police were preparing to make the arrests, accomplices were using data from the pin pad to withdraw money from victims' bank accounts, Det. Caplan said.

"It was stolen Friday night and they had all their cards ready by Saturday afternoon," he said. "They must have worked through the night."

Investigators have yet to determine the number of victims affected by the skimming operation and the amount of money stolen.

Det. Caplan said the fact the alleged accomplices showed up at the courthouse -- under the noses of the men investigating the skimming operation -- indicates they had few concerns about being implicated.

"It goes to show how bold these people are -- they don't think they're going to get caught," he said.