Det. Bill Gauthier holds a counterfeit credit card that Edmonton police seized in what he describes as a 'huge seizure' of counterfeit and stolen credit cards. (CBC) Police have laid charges against four Edmonton residents as part of a massive bust involving counterfeit and stolen credit cards, it was revealed Monday.

Brittany Erickson, 22, and Kristina Louise Dawson, 23, face a variety of charges relating to the making and possession of counterfeit credit cards.

Andrew David Stuebing, 31, and Kyla Susanne Peters, 20, were charged with possession of stolen property, possession of a controlled substance and charges relating to the making of counterfeit credit cards.

On June 28, police officers stopped a vehicle bearing a stolen licence plate.

A search of the vehicle turned up nearly 100 bogus cards, counterfeit driver's licences, a credit bureau report, a small amount of methamphetamine, and various receipts, police report.

A search of a downtown Edmonton apartment led police to a high-tech fake credit card operation, Det. Bob Gauthier said.

Edmonton police Det. Bob Gauthier talks to reporters about a seizure of counterfeit and stolen credit cards that resulted from officers pulling over a vehicle on June 28. (CBC) "This is a huge production, I personally have never seen a setup like this specifically set up to make counterfeit credit cards ... from scratch," he said.

The investigation indicated that the people who were originally stopped in the car have a connection to the person in the apartment, who in turn has been sending counterfeit goods through the mail, Gauthier said.

"It's not just the possession of the stuff. You're actually trafficking in these cards because they're shipping them across to British Columbia," Gauthier said.

"The network of this crime stuff is not just Alberta ... it's B.C. and probably farther," he said.

On the confiscated thumb drives alone, there are hundreds of credit card numbers, and police haven't even looked at the stolen computer hard drives found in the apartment, Gauthier said.

They could potentially hold hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers from many different places, he said. This "huge seizure" came from a simple vehicle stop and eventually involved many detachments and officers Gauthier said.

"The biggest one I've seen," he said of the scope of the operation.

The belief is that many more people are involved in this operation than just the four people who have been charged, Gauthier said.

"We've got the frauds ... drug entanglement, there's theft of mail, we also have stolen cheques, counterfeit cheques ... the only thing we didn't find was weapons," he said.

The loss to the banks for each of these counterfeit cards is usually $800 to $1,000, Gauthier said.