Police have arrested eight people in a debit-card cloning scam that netted thieves around $1 million from banks across Quebec, RCMP said Friday.

A ninth person is still being sought in the operation, during which police searched 10 residences and seized several vehicles, including high-priced luxury cars. Investigators said they also gathered up phoney card readers, cellphones and 230 blank plastic cards.

Most of the suspects are from the Montreal area. Five of them, including a suspect named in an arrest warrant, have been charged with fraud.

The investigation continues and charges of fraud were expected to be brought against four other suspects who were arrested, RCMP said in a release.

Phoney devices transmitted card information

Police said staff in the 15 stores hit were distracted while the point-of-sale terminal was stolen and replaced with a fake one, just before closing time.

The thieves would then insert a computer chip or a cloning device in the stolen terminal, which they returned to the store the next morning at opening time.

The chip inserted in the terminal allowed the suspects to download the data from customers' payment cards, police alleged. With this information, they could encode and emboss fake cards, then draw money from the customers' bank accounts.

Police were tipped off about the ring through information gathered in another investigation.

It's alleged about 1,000 people had money stolen from their bank accounts, but according to police they were able to recover the amounts from their financial institutions.