Women Taught Others How to Steal from ATMs

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A young woman faces up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty this week to skimming cash from dozens of area ATMs. Twenty-seven-year-old Lavoya Dixon told authorities she spent almost five months teaching friends, relatives and neighbors how to use the float to make off with thousands of dollars from the cash machines. Empire FCU was one of the biggest victims, losing more than $66,000 between August 2005 and January 2006. Dixon taught her accomplices how to make phony ATM deposits in envelopes, then withdraw the funds before the credit unions and bank realized the shortfall in the accounts. After recruiting people to open accounts and obtain ATM cards, Dixon and her accomplices would deposit minimal amounts or nothing in transactions made to look as if they were depositing hundreds of dollars. Then they immediately withdraw the cash. They would go to the ATMs on weekends because they knew the credit unions and banks wouldn’t process the transactions until Monday.