Card List 'to Attract Car Sales'

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday November 16, 2005

By REBECCA SENESCALL

A BANKER accused of leaking customers' credit card details has denied he had been trying to ingratiate himself with a wealthy, flamboyant member of hypnotist Gary Spellman's fraud racket.

Former National Australia Bank employee Gerry Pierro, 27, has admitted that he gave a handwritten list of customers' credit card details to a Wollongong businessman five years ago, but has pleaded not guilty to a charge of accessing the details from his work computer with the intention of facilitating fraud.

Pierro claims he had provided the details to the businessman - a friend of Spellman's - on the understanding that the man was going to target the customers for prestige car sales.

It was only after Pierro was charged two years ago that he realised the numbers had been used to defraud bank customers of $40,000.

Yesterday, Crown prosecutor Mark Fernandez asked Pierro why he hadn't simply handed over the customers' addresses and phone numbers - rather than giving the businessman the customers' credit card numbers, expiry dates and credit limits.

"I didn't think of it at the time," Pierro told the Wollongong District Court jury.

"(The businessman) led me to believe he had a way of contacting those clients, and I believed that.

"I remember him telling me he needed 'high net worth' customers, so that information was to demonstrate they had a capacity to spend.

"I was just doing what he asked me to do."

Pierro yesterday denied the Crown's suggestions that he had been aware of the businessman's fraudulent activities and handed over the credit card list so he could join the man's "group".

"That's not true, no," Pierro said.

Pierro agreed with Mr Fernandez that he had never told the NAB about giving the credit card details to the businessman - even after a front-page newspaper story in February 2003 stating that the businessman had been charged with defrauding National Australia Bank customers.

"(The businessman) had told me in 1999 that he had thrown the list in the bin ... I left it at that," Pierro said.

Closing submissions are expected to begin today.

© 2005 Illawarra Mercury

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