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Police hunt Romanian ATM thieves who are behind 90% of UK cashpoint fraud.
British and Romanian police are working to bring down cashpoint fraud, Around £40million worth is though to be committed per year in the UK, Around 90 per cent of it is organised by Romanian gangs according to police figures
British police are to hunt for the ‘Mr Bigs’ running Romanian gangs that are now behind more than 90 per cent of cashpoint thefts in this country, the Mail can reveal.
Officers will work with their Romanian counterparts to target the gangsters orchestrating the crimes which are netting an estimated £40 million a year.
New figures reveal a sharp rise in the crimes by Romanian gangs and there are fears this will rise further with a new wave of immigrants expected to arrive in the UK from January.
In the first six months of this year, fraud from ‘skimmed’ or ‘cloned’ cards rose 15 per cent to £23.2 million, compared to £20.2 million the same period in 2012.
UK cash machine fraud also rose by 11 per cent (corr) to £16.2 million in the first half of 2013, compared to £14.6 million in the first six months of 2012.
Earlier this year it emerged that the number of thefts related to ATMs has trebled.
There were some 7,572 cash machine card thefts in the first four months of the year, up from 2,553 during the same period in 2012.
Police intelligence suggests 92 per cent are linked to Romanian immigrants already in the UK.
The losses suffered as a result of ATM thefts run into many millions of pounds, sources said.
The Mail can reveal a major operation involving British and Romanian police is under way to identify the gangs behind the crime wave.
UK detectives believe several ‘top level’ gangsters, based in Romania, are orchestrating the misery being inflicted on UK card users.
Techniques such as skimming involve putting a reader over the card slot then collecting data as the card enters the machine
