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thomas davison

Cashpoint card snatches treble: Romanian crime gangs responsible for 92% of thefts from cash machines, police believe

Number of thefts carried out by cashpoints has trebled in the past year
Police intelligence suggests 90 per cent are linked to Romanian immigrants
Cost of card fraud expected to total �400million by the end of this year

By Sean Poulter

PUBLISHED: 22:58, 6 June 2013 | UPDATED: 22:58, 6 June 2013

Criminal gangs from Romania are responsible for a boom in cash machine card thefts.

Over the past year the number of thefts related to ATMs has trebled and police intelligence suggests more than 90 per cent are linked to Romanian immigrants.

There were some 7,572 cash machine card thefts in the first four months of the year, up from 2,553 during the same period in 2012.
Be vigilant: Over the past year the number of thefts related to ATMs has trebled and police intelligence suggests more than 90 per cent are linked to Romanian immigrants

Be vigilant: Over the past year the number of thefts related to ATMs has trebled and police intelligence suggests more than 90 per cent are linked to Romanian immigrants

Other card payment machines, such as railway station ticket machines, are also being targeted.

The techniques involved are crude yet they can generate huge windfalls, with card fraud for 2013 expected to reach �400million.

Gang members will crowd customers withdrawing cash to read their four-digit PIN, then distract them to steal the card. In some cases they install a simple metal sleeve in the slot which means the card is not returned to the user.

Someone reads the PIN over the victim�s shoulder and then, when they have moved away, retrieves the card. Once the thieves have the card and PIN they can go on a shopping spree or use a hole in the wall machine to empty their victim�s account.

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Pensioner Jacqueline Fletcher was watched by two thieves while she withdrew cash from an ATM outside her local supermarket in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire.

When the 80-year-old emerged from the shop, one of the men asked her for change and stole her bank card while pretending to help her with her purse.

�It frightened me and it gutted me to think that I�d been stupid enough and that they�d been attacking vulnerable people, young or old,� she said.

�It�s obvious that they�d seen me as an easy mark.�

Last month a woman in Cheltenham had her cards stolen in a supermarket car park as she was distracted by a man asking for directions. She believes the criminals, who siphoned �1,000 from her account, spotted her using her PIN at a store till.

Meanwhile, victims are finding it increasingly difficult to get their stolen cash refunded. A number of banks have introduced rules which means they can deny a refund if they believe the customer has failed to protect their PIN and card.

The theft figures were revealed by Financial Fraud Action, which is responsible for tackling plastic card fraud on behalf of banks. Chip and PIN cards were introduced by the industry in 2005 with the aim of reducing fraud.
'They saw me as an easy mark': Pensioner Jacqueline Fletcher was watched by thieves while she withdrew cash from outside her local supermarket

'They saw me as an easy mark': Pensioner Jacqueline Fletcher was watched by thieves while she withdrew cash from outside her local supermarket

The chip means the cards are difficult to copy, while a PIN is considered more secure than a signature.

Initially there was a dip in card fraud, however this is now rising again. The total cost of fraud on debit and credit cards leapt 14 per cent last year, by �47million to �388million, Fraud is expected to top �400million this year.

The City of London Police�s dedicated cheque and plastic crime unit calculates that 92 per cent of all cash machine fraud is committed by Romanian nationals.

In March, authorities in Europe arrested 44 members of a global card fraud network in a joint operation against a criminal gang targeting victims in Britain and 15 other countries. The operation, dubbed Pandora Storm, shut down illegal workshops producing card machine theft devices and involved 82 house searches in Romania and the UK.

In 2008 Romanian fraudster Adu Bunu, was jailed for five years after he was convicted of cloning more than 2,000 cards, which allowed him to steal up to �1.1million.

Police found idiot that showed his young son rolling around in a mountain of stolen cash.

Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Head, of City of London Police, said: �We can see quite clearly what they are doing with the money back in Romania. They are spending it on a lavish lifestyle, flash cars, flash houses.

�What sits behind it all is the greed � the greed of the people who are organising it, the greed of the professionals along the way who are enabling it.�

Another scam used by the gangs see them calling people at home pretending to be from the security department of their bank.

They warn their card details have been stolen and run through a series of security questions, including asking their target to volunteer their PIN. They then send an apparently official courier to collect the card.

Financial Fraud Action said people need to protect themselves and their cards. The organisation advises standing close to the cash machine and shielding the keypad when entering a PIN.

A spokesman said: �If someone is crowding or watching you, cancel the transaction and go to another machine. Do not accept help from seemingly well-meaning strangers and never allow yourself to be distracted.

As long as you have the muppets show running whats left of our third world country you will get no change, it will get worse until YOU have to do something, the WASTERS we have in power have no backbone, the APPEASERS will sell you down the river,
When soldiers can be beheaded in our own country and nothing is done about it DO NOT EXPECT THE GOVERNMENT OR THE POLICE TO PROTECT YOU, YOU WILL HAVE TO PROTECT YOURSELF.
It would be a good idea to form a national vigilante group, with a catchy name that people will aid and help when trouble starts, the police are useless so why not start our own British guardians and forget the police ,any ideas?