31 members of a Bulgarian crime ring have been arrested for ATM skimming, electronic payment fraud and forgery. Among the many consumer electronic devices that were seized during the bust were several 3D printers that the accused used in their efforts to pilfer account data from ATM machines.
Bulgarian and Spanish authorities cooperated with the European Cybercrime Centre – EC3 – and The Hague in a joint operation that saw 40 homes searched simultaneously in three Bulgarian cities — Sofia, Silistra and Burgas as well as homes in Malaga Spain. Dubbed Operation Imperium, the joint effort was the result of a previous agreement for EU countries to coordinate and share intelligence when dealing with crimes of this nature.
The authorities discovered the crime ring was using 3D printers to create false card slot bezels that were placed on the front of ATMs existing card slots, allowing user data to be skimmed. It looks like MakerBot Replicators were being used to create the false card slots, which is an interesting – and probably unwanted – endorsement of the quality of the popular desktop 3D printer.
In total eight facilities for the production of sophisticated skimming and counterfeiting equipment were shut down, All told, the authorities seized over 1000 electronic devices, including micro cameras, card readers, magnetic strip writers, personal computers, smart phones, flash drives and a large quantity of blank plastic cards ready to be encoded with stolen account information.
“We’ve hit another international organised payment crime network, which sends a strong signal to cybercriminal groups active in this field. This is a great example of effective joint efforts between EU Member States and EC3 to protect customers and their electronic transactions across the European Union.” Head of Europol’s EC3 Troels Oerting said, “It also shows that police as well as other law enforcement authorities in the EU are putting Europol’s unique tools to very good use to make electronic payment transactions safer.”
The highly sophisticated criminal enterprise was only thwarted due to the continuing efforts of European countries to create more cooperation between the various EU members law enforcement agencies. The primary MO of the crime ring was stealing account data from European countries, including Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Turkey and then transferring forged ATM cards to non-EU countries like Peru and the Philippines where the funds could more easily be withdrawn.
