ATMs on Staten Island rigged for identity theft

[kirniki <kirniki () gmail com>]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/11/2009-05-11_automated_theft_bandits_steal_500g_by_rigging_atms_with_pinreading_gizmos.html


A band of brazen thieves ripped off hundreds of New Yorkers by rigging
ATMs to steal account and password information from bank customers.

They used the pilfered info to swipe half a million dollars from their
victims' bank accounts - the latest twist in increasingly aggressive
identity-theft scams, police said.

"This crew is sophisticated," said Deputy Inspector Gregory Antonsen,
head of the NYPD's special investigations division. "And they are
coming up with new ways to steal your identity every day."

[..]

They sauntered into Staten Island branches on Henderson Ave. and Amboy
Road and installed devices on the bank's ATM machines, police said.

The first - a skimmer - went over the slot where customers insert
their ATM cards. The skimmer reads, and stores, the personal
information kept in the magnetic strip on the back of the bank card.

The second gizmo was a tiny camera hidden in the lighted signs over the ATM.

The pinhole camera lens pointed directly onto the ATM keypad and
filmed victims typing in their supposedly secret PIN codes.

The crew stole more than $500,000 from more than 250 victims - money
the bank is now reimbursing.

"They would download the information collected by the skimmer and
synchronize it with the video, and they would have your bank accounts
and your PIN number, and [start] grabbing all they can," Antonsen
said.

The thieves would then create their own phony ATM cards and use their
victim's PIN to dip into accounts, often going to other banks, like
Citibank, to make the withdrawals.

[..]
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