Criminal masterminds who skimmed bank ATMs

A phone book, a few dozen phone cards, a run-down Japanese import car and an electronic skimming device.

Simple tools but surprisingly all that was needed to commit what has now become the country's most audacious ATM scam - the theft of more than $100,000 from more than 100 unsuspecting Bank of New Zealand customers.

In the spirit of master con artist and cheque forger Frank Abagnale of Catch Me If You Can fame - two Russian charlatans used the most basic technology to outfox the banks, stay one step ahead of the police and line their pockets.

The wily pair are now believed to have skipped the country for Canada undetected - leaving behind a trail of carnage that in the space of a few short weeks has shattered consumer confidence in this country's usually venerable banking institutions.

Now two months on, the full detail of their fraud is beginning to emerge.

Yesterday the Herald on Sunday went inside the waterfront studio apartment in the Century On Anzac leased by the two fraudsters, believed to be in their mid-30s, and spoke to some of the people they met while in Auckland.

All that was left behind in the apartment, leased to the pair at $320 a week, were their fingerprints, now on police files - and a few remnants of their last meal: jars of jam and peanut butter and a half-eaten block of cheese.

The Herald on Sunday can also now reveal how the pair were long gone before the first photograph of one of them was released.

The story of their deception began in mid-February, when a tall, blue-eyed blonde woman and her balding, olive-skinned partner took out the lease on the waterfront studio apartment in Auckland's CBD.

Claiming to be immigrants from Canada, the pair signed a three-month lease, telling their landlord of their intentions to settle in New Zealand.

Friendly, talkative and polite, the pair kept a low-profile during the day, preferring to stay indoors where it appears they were involved inthe ultimate get-rich-quick scheme. Modest their surroundings may have been, but their plans were anything but.

From behind the doors of their furnished apartment, the pair spent hours lounging on the balcony with views of the city skyline, scheming and planning their heist.

To maintain their low-profile, they would seldom venture out. But when they did, it certainly wasn't in style - their car, a run-down, second-hand Japanese import, was a cheap but effective way to get around the city. Their ambivalence towards the law quickly became apparent - dozens of parking tickets issued against the pair were thrown away without a second's thought.

Back in their apartment, just a few hundred metres from Auckland's High Court, the pair pored through the white pages looking for a jackpot. Six ATM machines were targeted - on the corner of Queen and Victoria streets in central Auckland, New Lynn, Silverdale, Pakuranga, Manurewa and a standalone machine on Ponsonby Road, between February 10 and 28.

The pair installed an electronic skimming device on the ATMs to steal customers' bank card details.

Those details were then transferred on to blank phone cards and used to fleece customers' accounts. Before the first public release of information from the Bank of New Zealand alerting customers to the scam, the pair checked out of the Century on Anzac. And they haven't been seen since.

The owner of the apartment leased by the pair did not wish to be named but said the couple had told him they were looking to settle down in New Zealand, but were struggling to find jobs. Every second Tuesday, he said he would stop by the couple to collect the rent and check they were keeping the place tidy.

But on his fourth visit, the pair told him they were unhappy and heading home to Toronto.

"They said they were disappointed with Auckland, they couldn't find jobs and didn't like the weather," he said. That was Tuesday, March 28 - the day before the Bank of New Zealand announced an ATM in New Lynn had been skimmed. More than $50,000 was taken from 30 bank accounts.

"They were very friendly and polite. When they left, they asked if there was anything they owed me," the landlord said. He had thought nothing of their hasty departure until an anonymous phone call from an eagle-eyed neighbour across the street on Monday, April 10.

The caller had recognised the male Russian from a photo released by police on Friday, April 7.

That picture had been taken from security footage of a man who had bought 55 phone cards from a downtown souvenir store in late March.

The caller told the landlord he recognised the man because he spent so much time on the balcony across the street from his own apartment.

Unsure of the man's claims, the landlord checked the photo on the internet for himself.

He then called the police, who raided the apartment the next day.

"They seemed like good people and they told me they were going home to Canada," the landlord said.

"If they've done something wrong, let's lock them up quickly. If not, then we should clear their name."

Detective sergeant Sean Hyland-Mills, from Waitakere CIB, could not say whether the card skimmers had skipped the country - but did not rule it out. "All I can say is that Interpol and Henderson fraud office are working together very closely on this one." However, photographs distributed at a BNZ meeting on Thursday showed the fraudsters departing Auckland Airport.

During the raid on the apartment, police removed phone directories, took fingerprints and other potential clues, including the lease agreement.

Neighbours and nearby business owners said yesterday they were shocked to discover the couple were at the centre of the scam, describing them as unassuming and ordinary.

Lotfi Hammoudi, who owns the neighbouring dairy and also lives in Century on Anzac, said the man was a regular shopper who would buy snack food and fizzy drinks. "They would both come here to use the internet," said Mr Hammoudi.

He said he had not been interviewed by police, and officers had also not attempted to check what sites the Russian couple had visited while using the internet.

Winson Chen, who runs a hairdressing salon on the ground floor of the apartment building, recalled the couple's white Japanese import car.

It was parked constantly on Anzac Ave and ticketed frequently by parking wardens, he said.

"They didn't care. They just threw the tickets away," Mr Chen said.

"But they seemed nice. The woman was blonde with blue eyes and had a wart on the end of her nose."

Jericho Huingo, who lives in the apartment next door to the room the couple had been renting, said he had only met them once, but he recalled how they used to talk loudly in a foreign language on the deck late at night.

"They asked me what nationality I was and I told them I was Maori.

"They told me that they were Russian."

He had no idea the couple were suspects at the centre of the ATM skimming story.

The BNZ has since blocked nearly 8000 cards to limit the damage from the ATM skimming saga.

Nearly $50,000 has been withdrawn from New Zealand accounts in Toronto, Canada since the scam was first detected.

BNZ spokeswoman Brenda Newth said no more money had been stolen since Tuesday last week.

She also assured no customer would be out of pocket as a result of the skimming incidents.

The trail of deception

March 7: Bank of New Zealand customer reports a suspicious-looking ATM in New Lynn.

March 29: BNZ blocks 1300 cards used at its New Lynn machine between March 7 and 28. It finds a total of $55,000 has been stolen from 30 accounts.

March 30: BNZ warns that another machine at Silverdale may have been tampered with. Another 1400 cards are suspended.

April 6: Security devices are attached to all 450 BNZ ATMs to stop skimming.

April 7: Police release footage of man who bought 55 phone cards in Auckland on March 26.

April 10: BNZ announces nearly $50,000 withdrawn in Canada from 60 cards skimmed at Pakuranga ATM.

April 11: Police raid Century-on-Anzac apartment. The suspects have already fled.

April 13: BNZ blocks overseas use of a further 4800 cards used between February 10-28.