Police Nab Six Suspects In ATM Fraud
Posted May 15, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Police have nabbed six suspects in connection with a city-wide debit card scheme overnight.
A cyber-sleuthing unit of the Toronto-Dominion Bank had been tracking suspicious ATM withdrawals at several bank machines in Scarborough when it notified police around 6am Friday.
“About 6:00am we responded to a bank alarm regarding some fraudulent activity at an ATM machine,” explains Det. Sgt. Rick Searl. “Our uniformed officers attended and arrested two men at the bank. One inside the ATM kiosk and the other just outside.”
The machine being used had the ability to detect when a phony card is being utilized, setting off the alarm.
Two people, aged 21 and 22, were apprehended, with another suspect rounded up in 43 Division.
And a witness in Etobicoke called police after seeing three men in a vehicle acting strangely. Responding officers arrested three men and charged them with possession of credit cards obtained by crime and fraudulently possessing credit card data.
They were in court Friday morning.
There are reports ATMs in Montreal were also hit overnight and the plot may be connected to organized crime.
“The number one thing as a consumer you can do is to protect your PIN…when you are inputting your PIN use your free hand to cover what you are doing, because sometimes criminals will have a video camera up above and are actually taping you punching your PIN,” advises Maura Drew-Lytle, Canadian Bankers Association.
“Even if they’ve created a duplicate card, without your PIN they can’t do anything with it.”
