“They’re stealing your information in a matter of seconds.”
According to a Fox News report, prosecutors in California are warning residents of a spike in ATM card skimmer scams carried out by members of the Romanian mafia in the country illegally.
They’ll have people sitting outside a Walmart or a Target, and it looks like they’re panhandling,” says Kimberly Edds, director of public affairs with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. “Sometimes they’ll have a couple of kids. And they are actually using Bluetooth technology that’s connected to the skimmers inside the stores. So it’s like a two-for-one, getting cash that people give them and stealing the numbers off the skimmers.”
From Fox News:
Surveillance video obtained by the El Cajon Police Department shows suspects can place a skimmer over the checkout’s credit card swipe in just seconds — and they look almost exactly like the real thing.
Police recommend tugging on a credit card swipe before inserting your card. If it wobbles or comes off, it’s fake.
Authorities say they’ve already busted dozens of suspects, most of them with ties to organized crime in Romania.
And despite large busts in December and January of dozens of suspects in the U.S., Europe and Mexico, where they are teaming up with cartels in tourist hot spots like Tulum, the thefts are increasing as thieves double down on their efforts, authorities said.
They could be raking in up to $9 million a month — much of it at taxpayers’ expense.
The skimmers, which can target EBT card users as well, have allegedly drained accounts the moment that the state releases monthly payments, according to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s office, which announced a major crackdown on such crimes earlier this year. As a result, more than $100 million worth of thefts robbed taxpayer-funded welfare programs and their recipients.
“The victims are single mothers struggling to put a roof over their children’s heads and food on the table and hardworking people who need a helping hand who find themselves standing at the checkout line with bags full of groceries only to be humiliated when they find that they have no money in their account because a thief has surreptitiously taken everything,” Spitzer said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the thieves are using this money to fund organized crime, to buy luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and to lead a life of luxury that the true recipients can only dream about.”
Watch the clip above to see how the crooks steal your info.