A man was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison and fined 30,000 yuan ($4,753) for his role in forging a credit card that an accomplice used to buy gold necklaces worth 36,000 yuan, a local court said Wednesday.

The defendant, surnamed Sun, was charged with credit card fraud in Jiading District People's Court, according to a court press release.

In March, Sun bought several blank credit cards along with the personal information of several card holders on the black market. The next day, he offered his friend, surnamed Luo, the personal information of a legitimate card owner surnamed Li.

Luo ordered two accomplices, surnamed Shen and Feng, who were working out of a hotel room in Jiangsu Province, to create a counterfeit card with special equipment that can write a card holder's information on a blank card, according to the court.

On April 3, Luo used the card to purchase two gold necklaces from a scalper at a department store in Jiading district, who offered to sell the jewelry at below retail price.

The group then sold the necklaces for 24,000 yuan on the black market. Luo's share was 14,000 yuan and Sun's was 10,000 yuan, according to Zhu Yanjia, press officer for the district court.

On the same day, the card holder Li called the police after discovering that someone had made an unauthorized charge on his account. The police arrested Sun and the three others three months later.

Zhu told the Global Times that such fraud has grown rampant in recent years because it is easy to purchase credit card forging equipment on the black market.