CT- Man charged with ATM,identity theft

Man charged with ATM,
identity theft
Two Wallingford banks targeted
Updated: Tuesday, 28 Jul 2009, 9:18 AM EDT
Published : Monday, 27 Jul 2009, 4:13 PM EDT

Wallingford (WTNH) - Police need the public's help to identify a man they say installed ATM skimming devices at two Wallingford banks.

The suspect would only identify himself as 'Martin' and is thought to be Romanian or Bulgarian and in the country illegally.

Police say 'Martin' installed skimming devices on drive-up ATM's at the Bank of America and Wachovia Bank , both on North Colony Road. The scamming devices were glued to the part of the ATM that accepts the ATM cards. Police say they were nearly indistinguishable from the ATM's actual card reading device.

"We got a call from a bank that there was somebody tampering, had tampered, with one of the machines," said Lt. Marc Mikulski. " Our officers got out there and learned someone put a skimming device, they call it, where the actual card reader of the ATM machines are."

The skimming device stores the card numbers and then has to be physically downloaded.

It also has a camera to attain the pin number.

"It's a camera; there's a pin hole camera right there that they mount on top of the ATM machine, that kind of fits in," said Lt. Mikulski

Once the skimming devices were discovered, police set up surveillance on the ATM's. On July 25, 'Martin' was arrested for criminal attempt to commit larceny, criminal attempt to commit identity theft and unlawful possession of a skimming device.

"These are professionals, this is somebody who does this for a living, it's not a hobby," said Lt. Mikulski.

Police say the skimming devices were removed from the ATM's before any customer information could be accessed.

If you know who 'Martin' is, please call police at 203-294-2805.


http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/consumer/n ... 0907271605