Italian police arrest 16 Romanians suspected of ATM skimming

Apr 15, 2016 22:55 GMT  ·  By

Europol, together with Italy's Carabinieri, has arrested a group of Romanian nationals operating a massive ATM skimming operation in three EU countries.

Authorities arrested sixteen individuals across Italy and seized equipment such as micro camera bars, card readers, magnetic strip readers and writers, computers, phones, flash drives, and plastic cards ready to be formed into credit card clones.

The group operated by crafting ATM skimming devices, which they would install on ATMs across Italy, Denmark, and the UK.

The crooks would then collect credit card data from these devices, craft cloned payment cards, and then pass them off to partners in Belize and Indonesia, who would then make fraudulent transactions, emptying the victim's accounts. The money would then be split across group members.

Europol estimates that the crooks defrauded EU citizens of €1.2 million ($1.35 million) during the past years. The officials say they were made aware of the group's existence back in 2014, when they also started their investigation.

Romanian crooks have an affinity for ATM skimming

"Organized criminal groups are always looking for new global opportunities to make money, especially in the criminal market of payment fraud," Steven Wilson, Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), said. "Operations such as this highlight the importance of using Europol’s secure tools for exchanging intelligence and for coordinating the crucial operational stages involved in complex international cases."

"The resounding success of such an operation is not the first nor will it be the last, as police officers and prosecutors, alongside EC3, continue in their tireless endeavors to make payment transactions safer for customers throughout Europe and beyond."

This case isn't the first time when a group of Romanian nationals were caught operating large or small-scale ATM skimming operations. This happened in the past many times, again, and again, and again, and again.

Goods seized from suspects by Italian police
Goods seized from suspects by Italian police

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Goods seized from suspects by Italian police
Goods seized from suspects by Italian police
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