The two men, both of whom are Romanian nationals, were arrested last week on their way to withdraw money from a small village in Hungary.

They were found to have more than 100 fake bank cards with account numbers that matched those of cards that had been hi-jacked from petrol stations in Malmö.

In addition to the fake bank cards, the men were also carrying around €10,000 ($14,000) in cash.

Police also later confiscated equipment used to make fake bank cards.

“This shows that we’re probably not dealing with fake cards purchased on the internet nor is it likely they are front men. Rather, it’s the principals who have been arrested,” said Malmö police fraud investigator Kenneth Svenning to the Skånska Dagbladet newspaper.

“What we now hope is that we’ll be able to get more credit card numbers to compare and to see what connection there may be with different cases in Malmö. The next step is to see if the men have been in Sweden at the actual time [when the crimes were committed].”

Police in Malmö have received several hundred complaints from people suspecting they are victims in the credit card “skimming” scam.

Altogether, the fraudsters are believed to have made off with around 1.5 million kronor ($190,000).

Of the complaints received so far regarding stolen credit card numbers, around half have come from motorists who had filled their tanks at an unmanned Shell station in Malmö.