Eastern Europeans Charged In AustralianCards Fraud

SYDNEY, Australia - (03/09/06) – Four Eastern Europeans, threeBulgarian and one Russian national, all holding Canadian passports,were charged this week with engineering a credit card fraud schemethroughout Australia. The ring apparently skimmed credit union andbank account information at ATMs, then used the account informationto create counterfeit debit cards to withdraw cash. The suspectswere being held without bail for fear they could flee the country.The suspects were charged with a variety of identity theft crimes.The suspects were identified as: Zlatko Stoyanov, 33, AssenGrigorov, 31, Andrey Tzvetanov, 40, and Ruslan Ahmedeev, 29. Thisweek’s charges follow those a group of Bulgarian nationallast year on similar card fraud charges.