A 32-year-old Canadian was arrested by Malaysian police on charges of heading an international fake credit-card ring.

The Canadian, who was not immediately identified, was apprehended on Penang island where he was known as well-heeled foreigner with a beachfront bungalow.

Records show that he had been on the run from authorities in Canada for drug offences, according to the New Straits Times.

The Canadian is said to have entered Malaysia on a tourist visa in 2003 and stayed on.

The suspect is believed to have cloned credit cards from his house and couriered them to syndicates in the United States, Poland, Canada, Turkey, Spain and Brazil.

He was arrested by a police team in the early morning of July 21.

Police seized 2,202 "face-card" or credit cards which contain no information, 19 fake credit cards, eight fake American Express cards, two ATM cards and one charge card in the suspect’s house.

Malaysian authorities also took possession of a laptop computer containing the information of 300 credit-card accounts, a steel safe, a scanner, printer, printing kit, film-strip reader, card reader, digital camera, and memory cards.

Other items confiscated included silver and gold-coloured Mastercard aluminum coils and gold-coloured Visa aluminum coils.

A 41-year-old Malaysian woman who was with the suspect was also arrested. However, police have yet to establish if the woman had any role in producing the cloned credit cards.

Both have been remanded until Aug 2, the New Straits Times said.

Police said that initial investigations showed the information contained on the cards belonged to foreigners.

Counterfeit credit cards made by the suspect were not distributed in Malaysia as credit cards there use the Euromastervisa (EMV) chip while those in other countries used magnetic stripes.

Police said the chip could not be cloned while it was possible to clone magnetic-stripe cards, according to the New Straits Times.