The skimming attacks against Shell’s gas stations in Sweden are swelling as more people report money missing on their credit card accounts.

The police in Malmö, south Sweden, have been busy receiving a rapidly growing number of reports from upset people who’ve had their credit cards drained after filling up their cars at unmanned Shell stations, the TT newswire writes.

“The police has launched an investigation and we assist them in their work. At the same time Shell investigates and takes necessary measures” Swedish Shell wrote on its homepage.

On Tuesday the police issued a warning about a so called skimming attack, a common form of white-collar crime. The police suspects that a number of automatic paying machines have been manipulated, making it possible for the raider to read all the account information stored electronically on the magnetic stripe.

The police doesn't have any suspects yet. A large part of the withdrawals has been made from New York.

“I have some 45 reports already, and I know that there are more coming”, said Stefan Olsson, at the police’s fraud squad in Malmö, to TT.