2 Romanian nationals held for 'skimming, data theft' at ATMs

: Two Romanian nationals have been arrested on the charge of committing data theft at several ATMs here by fixing skimmers and micro-cameras, police said on Thursday.

The foreigners, aged 47 and 28, were allegedly committing debit card data theft of bank customers by fixing skimmer devices and body covers containing built-in micro- camera and memory card above the keypad of ATMs.

Based on a complaint by an official of a PSU bank that some suspicious instrument was found attached to its ATM, a case was registered, the police said.

After accessing CCTV footage of the ATM centre which showed the two men fixing the skimmer and the micro camera to the ATM machine on October 12 and 14, a police team identified the two suspected foreigners and apprehended them from different parts of the city, a police release said.

The two Romanians confessed that they came to India in September under the instruction of Cristi, another Romanian national and after committing the theft of debit card data, it was sent to Cristi, police said adding during investigations it was revealed that some more Romanians entered India and are spread in different states for committing similar offences.

Both of them confessed that during the last 25 days of their stay in Hyderabad, they have committed data theft at several ATMs by fixing skimmers and micro-cameras.

Skimmers are devices fastened near the factory- installed card reader of the automated teller machine (ATM) to capture data from the magnetic strip on the back of a debit or credit card.

Micro-cameras are used for PIN (personal identification number) capturing which allows withdrawal of money using fraudulent cards made by inserting the captured magnetic strip data, police added.