European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol along with Italy's
military, Carabinieri arrested 16 Romanian nationals who were operating a
massive ATM skimming operation in three EU countries.
Authorities seized 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 from individuals arrested from
across Italy.
The group installed ATM skimming devices on cash machines across
Italy, Denmark, and the UK. Later, the group collected credit card data from
these devices, crafted cloned payment cards and pass them off to partners in
Belize and Indonesia who made fraudulent transactions and emptied the victim’s
accounts.
The money was later split across group members.
The damaged incurred by this criminal group’s activity is
estimated at EUR 1.2 million ($1.35 million) in the past.
Officials started its investigation on the group in 2014
when they first came to know about it.
This isn’t the first time when group of Romanian nationals
have been caught operating ATM skimming
operations. In the past, many such
activities have taken place.
However, intelligence agencies and security officials have
been trying to make payment transactions safer for
customers throughout Europe and
elsewhere.