Police investigate sophisticated skimming scam

Police are investigating whether a trio of Romanian nationals have been involved in a sophisticated ATM scam.

Three men have been arrested and charged with participating in an organised criminal group. They allegedly attempted to obtain a document used in credit or eftpos card skimming.

Marius Ioan Crasuleac, 26, Marian Puscasu, 29, and Ionel Palade, 32, have appeared in the Auckland District Court and have been jointly charged.

Detective Sergeant James Robson, of the Auckland fraud squad, confirmed the charge related to skimming but declined to comment further. He said the police were investigating whether there was any evidence of ATM skimming.

Major banks contacted by the Weekend Herald confirmed there had been a recent skimming attack in Auckland.

All affected customers are reimbursed by the banks.

Ron Watt, the top fraud investigator at BNZ, said a skimming device was placed on a competitor's ATM so only a handful of BNZ customers were affected.

"We have taken a number of steps to protect those who may be affected including phoning these cardholders. We have also asked customers to place the affected card into a BNZ ATM for a transaction or balance check," he said.

"This then 'changes' the stored material held on the magnetic stripe of the card through our Liquid Encryption Technology [LEN] which gives them the comfort of knowing their cards can't be copied and used for fraudulent purposes."

In April 2006, a Russian couple living in an Auckland apartment stole $100,000 from 100 unsuspecting BNZ customers. The pair targeted six ATMs with skimming devices and skipped the country before police were even alerted.

Romanians Jan Scutariu, 31, and Andrei Raileanu, 24, were convicted in November 2008 of stealing almost $35,000 with cloned credit cards from cash machines across Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.

Last April, Romanians Marcel Cismas and Alexandru Tudor were convicted of attempting to steal nearly $60,000 with credit cards cloned from cash machines across the North Shore and Rotorua.