Steve Fonyo charged in credit card scheme

Formercross-Canada charity runner Steve Fonyo has been charged in B.C. with unauthorized use of a credit card.

Fonyo, 45, was arrested Thursday at his Surrey residence by police from the neighbouring municipality of Delta, police saidFriday.

Police allege that on three occasions, Fonyo bought fuel at a Delta gas station using a phoney credit card.

Fonyo, who lost a leg to cancer when he was 12, ran across Canada in 1984, raising more than $13 million for cancer research.

Fonyo won the Order of Canada in 1985 for his efforts, but the honour was officially withdrawn earlier this year because of hiscriminal convictions.

In 1996, he pleaded guilty in Edmonton to more than a dozen charges, ranging from assault with a weapon to fraud and theft. By 2008, he had at least seven driving convictions, including impaired driving, for which he served time in jail that year.

Delta police said Friday that an ongoing investigation has revealed that peopleusing plastic cards with magnetic strips encoded withcounterfeit gas card data have made more$60,000 worth of fraudulent fuel purchases in Delta over the past 10 months.

Fonyo was charged as part of that investigation, police said.

Hewas scheduled tomake acourt appearance in Surrey on Friday afternoon.