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Two illegal immigrants have been deported after ripping off thousands of dollars from bank customers in a sophisticated ATM fraud.
Jan Marius Scutariu, 31, and Andrei Iustin Raileanu, 24, have been convicted of stealing almost $35,000 with cloned credit cards from cash machines across Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.
The Romanians glued an electronic "skimming" device to a Westpac ATM during a 48-hour period in the Hamilton 400 V8 races in April, secretly recording the bank details of thousands of unwitting customers.
The asylum seekers had a hidden camera trained on the keypad, or "shoulder surfed" the victims, to capture the card PIN numbers before going on a spending spree.
Scutariu and Raileanu went on a four-day road trip in a silver Nissan rental car through the Bay of Plenty, making hundreds of $800 withdrawals from ATMs in Rotorua, Kawerau, Whakatane, Te Puke and Tauranga.
The suspicious transactions tipped off Westpac fraud investigators, who froze the cards of thousands of customers before alerting the police.
Scutariu was identified from CCTV footage and connected to another fraud investigation which saw him convicted of skimming credit cards while working at a Shell petrol station in Auckland.
Detectives executed search warrants on Scutariu's Auckland apartment, finding $12,000 in $20 bills, 300 blank phonecards, a card reader hidden inside a stereo and a list of bank account details.
He was arrested in April and Raileanu a month later.
A third suspect has fled the country, while another Romanian associate who had UK convictions for bank fraud was told by police to leave the country.
"Skimming" - where the magnetic strip of the card is recorded into a portable device, then transferred on to blank cards - is widespread in the UK and Europe.
While the most recent investigation is one of only a handful committed in New Zealand, Detective Michael Knighton said skimming posed a huge risk to the banking community.
Nineteen customers of four major banks - Westpac, ANZ, ASB and National Bank - were affected but later reimbursed.
"Fortunately, skimming is still relatively rare as it does require a degree of sophistication and resourcing," said Knighton.
"The technology is advanced. The card reading device keeps the details, which can be downloaded on to a computer, transferred via the internet or an email account. So what is captured here can be sent electronically overseas."
Scutariu and Raileanu pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 12 months in prison last month. They were released after serving six months in Auckland Central Remand Prison and deported. Scutariu arrived in New Zealand using a false passport in May 2006 and failed in his appeals to stay in the country, living here unlawfully since October last year.
The Department of Labour declined his application for refugee status. His appeal was rejected by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority which found Scutariu's claims that he risked persecution if returned to Romania were not credible.
He then appealed to the Independent Removal Review Authority, so he could not be deported until that decision was made.
Raileanu and the third suspect arrived at Auckland airport in March and applied for political asylum. Both were granted three-month working visas. Five weeks later, the trio started their ATM scam.
Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling said the bank re-issued several thousand cards to customers to close down the risk of further fraud. All customers targeted were reimbursed by Westpac, and Dowling said the public could have confidence in banking security.
"It should be highlighted that successful ATM skimming is extremely rare and requires offenders to obtain both card details and someone's PIN," he said.
"It seems that in this instance the offenders were only moderately successful in obtaining both these pieces of information."
When asked why not all Westpac customers were warned of the scam, Dowling said that would be a "disproportionate response".
"It was clear early on we were dealing with a specific and isolated incident affecting only those people who used a particular ATM during a particular period and we dealt with those people openly and directly."
He warned all ATM users to be vigilant, to "watch out for anything out of the ordinary", and to protect their PIN numbers when entering them.
This is not the first time that New Zealand bank customers have been ripped off by foreign criminals attacking bank security.
In April 2006, the Herald on Sunday reported a Russian couple living in an Auckland apartment had stolen $100,000 from 100 unsuspecting BNZ customers.
The pair targeted six ATMs with skimming devices before skipping the country - before police were even alerted.
A few months later, the Herald on Sunday revealed a family of four Romanians stole more than $100,000 in another ATM pickpocket rip-off while on day leave from the Migrant and Refugee Centre in Mangere.
Tony Costache, his wife Nagie Cerchez, teenage son Denis and Costache's gay lover Costica Bursuc were jailed for between two and three years on dishonesty charges and passport fraud.
All four have been deported or left voluntarily.
