A total of 60 individuals have now been arrested by police authorities across Europe for participating in a large international scheme for credit card forgery and other crimes, masterminded by Bulgarians.

The gang has been active since nine years and has accumulated a fortune estimated at over EUR 50. Around 5000 police officers from Spain Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Germany, US intelligence agents and experts from Europol have contributed to the operation, codenamed Night Clone Card.

The Bulgarian crime ring, which has been described as the world's largest in the sphere of bank card cloning, has been active mostly in Italy, where nine suspects were detained. US police arrested two suspects and two more were apprehended in Spain, while one person was held in Poland.

The first group of 47 individuals were arrested by the Bulgarian police last week as part of a highly publicized special police operation codenamed Shock.

The group had links to crime organisations in Kenya, South Africa and the United States, and also recruited and trained petty criminals to illegally withdraw money with the false cards.