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Law-enforcement authorities in the U.S. and overseas have arrested four Romanian men and charged them with using counterfeit debit cards to steal $1.8 million from ATMs owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks in upstate New York and Florida. The men were arrested April 17 in Florida. R. Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, on May 1 arraigned the suspects on various federal charges, including possession of a credit card skimmer, possession of 15 or more stolen debit card account numbers, aggravated identity theft, and the use of unauthorized access devices. According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly used skimming devices to capture data stored on card magnetic stripes and used the information to make counterfeit debit cards. They also allegedly installed pinhole cameras to capture cardholders typing in their PINs. The defendants allegedly wired the funds they got from ATMs using the cards to Romania and across the U.S. via Western Union, the U.S. Attorney's office said. The indictment only mentions the four's alleged crimes in Florida, but the Syracuse, N.Y., office of the U.S. Secret Service also assisted in the case. The Post-Standard in Syracuse reported that the men allegedly skimmed $40,000 on at least four occasions from an ATM at a Chase Cicero, N.Y., branch. Chase employees discovered the skimming device at a drive-up ATM, the newspaper reports.
