MH17: looters used British victim's bank cards

Family say fraud is ‘final insult' for 38-year-old helicopter pilot Cameron Dalziel

Credit cards
(Image credit: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images)

The bank cards of a British victim of the MH17 atrocity were looted from the wreckage of the downed jet liner and used fraudulently until his family cancelled them. Cameron Dalziel's relatives say the "cruel" crime was the "final insult" after his death.

Dalziel was a 43-year-old father of two with dual South African and British nationality who worked as a rescue helicopter pilot. His brother Shane Hattingh said the cards appear to have been taken from the crash site and used in recent days, reports The Times.

There have been widespread reports that looting was taking place at the crash site, as rebels refused to grant access to crash investigators. There are also claims that pieces of wreckage from another plane were brought to the site and scattered there.

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"The family's report comes after several friends and relatives of victims said they had tried to call their mobile phones, only to find them answered by people with Eastern European accents," adds the Times.

All 298 people on the plane died when it was shot down on 17 July, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The US authorities have said they believe pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels, armed by Russia, were to blame.

Hattingh said: "After all we've been through - to do this to the families is so cruel. It is leaving some struggling for money. This really is the final insult." He told the paper that Dalziel's wife, Reine, had been forced to cancel the cards.

Hattingh told the Daily Mail that looters were "abusing" the disaster. He said: "People are abusing it in the Ukraine. They have no respect for each other, look what they're doing. It made me angry beyond words."

The UK's foreign office told the Times it was "working with family members to protect victims from the possibility of financial and identity fraud". Australia, which lost 27 citizens in the crash, is sending federal police to help guard the crash site.

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