A British man has appeared briefly in a Perth court to face charges linked to what police say is Australia’s biggest-ever eftops card skimming operation.

Elangovan Ganeshamoorthy, 36, was not required to plead to charges of conspiracy to defraud when he appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The British citizen was extradited to Perth on Tuesday after being arrested in Sydney on Monday, following a national and international investigation dubbed Operation Mintox.

Ganeshamoorthy made no application for bail and was remanded to appear in the same court on January 22 next year.

WA Major Fraud Squad Detective Senior Sergeant Don Heise on Tuesday alleged Ganeshamoorthy and a Canadian man were involved in an international crime syndicate that stole more than $4.5 million from about 4,000 WA victims.

He told reporters it was the “largest skimming crime to have happened in Australia”.

The Canadian man is expected to be extradited from Sydney to Perth on Thursday.

Police say the men are alleged to have gone to more than 20 McDonald’s restaurants in the Perth metropolitan area, swapping the pin keypads on eftpos machines at the outlets’ drive-throughs.

Police allege that after distracting staff and installing their own keypad, the men were able to gather credit and debit card information from McDonald’s customers through Bluetooth file-sharing technology.

It’s alleged that during October up to $5 million was stolen from bank accounts using automatic teller machines in NSW, Victoria, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, India and Malaysia.

Det Snr Sgt Heise said WA McDonald’s outlets were targeted because of the type of pin keypad they used.