Two men have been jailed for a total of ten years for stealing up to £6.5m through an online identity scam.

Douglas Havard, 24, a US citizen living in Leeds was yesterday sentenced to six years after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and launder money. Co-conspirator Lee Elwood, 25, of Glasgow was sentenced to four years.

The two men ran a UK syndicate which cloned credit cards using stolen financial information gained through email phishing scams, which trick online banking customers into giving out usernames and passwords.

Havard admitted to Leeds Crown Court that he received batches of credit card details and passwords from unnamed Russian individuals.

Phishing victim's identities and bank account details were then used to steal money from cash machines and buy and sell goods online, says the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) which arrested the pair earlier this month.

'The criminals cloned cards and ripped off ATMs. The pair stole at least £750,000 over a 10-month period but with the amount of traffic they did over that period we estimate it could amount to £6.5m or perhaps more,' a spokeswoman for the NHTCU told Computing.

NHTCU is still working with Russian law enforcement agencies, the US Secret Service and the FBI to track down the eastern European crime syndicates involved in the scam.

Havard has admitted to using money transfer agencies to send a cut of the proceeds back to the Russian hackers, who communicated with the pair through the carderplanet and shadowcrew websites, which promote identity theft and card fraud.

The pair also used cloned credit cards to purchase expensive goods and then recruited individuals to sell them through online auction sites.

'Over the past year, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has seen a sustained increase in the professionalism of cybercriminals,' said detective superintendent Mick Deats, deputy head of the NHTCU. 'Companies are taking the brunt of their attempts to steal money and data, but consumers are also being hit.'

When NHTCU arrested Havard on 4 June they discovered 10 different identities, forged travellers cheques and equipment used to manufacture false identities were discovered in his flat. £10,000 in cash was discovered at other addresses used by Havard and a further £20,000 was found in bank accounts.

Elwood was arrested on 8 June after NHTCU discovered a large number of forged bank documents, credit card holograms and computers in his flat.

'Organised crime is always on the look-out for ways to make money and has now realised that the internet affords them such opportunities and billions of pounds are being lost to the UK economy through hi-tech crime,' said Deats.

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