Romanian nabbed in ATM fraud

Customer reward cards used to access hacked European bank accounts

Police arrested and charged a Romanian national for tyring to withdraw cash  from  an automated teller machine (ATM) in Cebu City  using different customer reward cards with magnetic strips.

Gheorghe Adelin Stretcu claimed that he had hacked European credit card accounts and transferred the data to reward cards from a convenience store chain.

He told police he was an  “economist” working in Romania’s airport and that he  chose to operate in the Philippines because the country “has the weakest ATM security features in the world.”

Supt. Romeo Santander, chief of the City Intelligence Branch (CIB) of the Cebu City Police Office, said Stretcu was charged yesterday for violation of the Access Devices Regulation Act or Republic Act 8484. An access device refers to a  a card, such as ATM or credit card, that is used to obtain or transfer funds.

More than  90 customer reward cards with magnetic strips at the back issued by a  convenience store chain, an iPhone and a passport were recovered from Stretcu’s possession upon his arrest last Sunday afternoon.

His passport showed  Stretcu  entered the Philippines five days ago on  Sept. 17 with a tourist visa valid for a month. He was allegedly staying with a Romanian national named Alin Rasianci. He refused to give  additional information.

Police are  coordinating with the  Romanian consulate, Interpol  and Bureau of Immigration for  deportation proceedings.

The 32-year-old Romanian told police during interrogation that he could illegally withdraw up to P20,000 cash with his strategy.

Santander said no Filipino has been victimized, so far.

Santander said Stretcu claimed to have a German friend named “Skinhead,” who hacked credit card accounts in Europe and that they would encode the account details into a reward card, which  only costs P10 each.

“They hack the data from banks then transfer this to a certain machine used to modify the reward card for the kind of modus they are operating,” he added.

CIB operatives caught Stretcu trying to withdraw from an ATM using several cards while talking on his mobile phone last Sunday afternoon.

Santander said his men observed the suspect at a distance after bank security personnel called for police assistance.  The foreigner’s unusual behavior was noticed on the closed-circuit television camera (CCTV).

“This is a very new scheme. In the past, usually specific bank cards were used. But with this, as long as a card has a magnetic  strip, it can allegedly be used for this when encoded with the data of a certain bank account,” Santander said.

Santander said Stretcu claimed to have bought the reward cards in London. Each card, however, contained instructions of how to activate it using a number with a Philippine area code.

“They already hacked several accounts in other parts of the world. He said they decided to withdraw the money here since the penalty here is not as stiff,” said Santander.

Cebu Bankers Club president Maximo Eleccion said efforts are ongoing with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to  strengthening  the  security system of the banking industry.

“By next year,  banks will be migrating from magnetic ATM cards to those with microchips which are less prone to hacks,” he said.