Unlike other gangs, the thieves who want to rip off your debit card information prefer to keep a low profile.
Matthew Claxton, Langley Advance
Sun
Fighting gangs: The Langley Advance continues its look at gangs and the effect they have on the community. Photograph by: file, Langley Advance
They’re organized criminals, but they don’t tattoo gang names on their bodies, they don’t wear colours, and they don’t come up with snappy names.
Cst. Steven Kuan of the economic crime section of Langley’s RCMP spends his time tracking the gangs who want to steal the data from your debit card and empty your bank account.
“We’re finding very organized crime groups behind it,” Kuan said.
Langley officers recently arrested a man from Montreal who had withdrawn money at four local banks. He was carrying numerous blank cards, each one labelled with a PIN number and a serial number.
The man was on his cellphone when police caught up with him.
Within hours, all the fake debit cards had been duplicated and were being used to withdraw money from other cash machines across the country, Kuan said.
Kuan said criminals have spent the past several years improving their techniques for ripping off Interac and similar card systems.
The scam begins with a stolen or purchased PIN pad, the sort used in countless businesses. The crooks will take them apart and add their own components.
The device still works, but it also records the magnetic strips of your card, along with your personal identification number.
A member of the organization will enter a restaurant or store, usually close to closing time, and while the clerk isn’t looking, they will swap out the store’s PIN pad for their own modified version.
“Now it’s a full-fledged skimming operation,” Kuan said. If the store’s employees don’t notice the swap, they’ll continue to swipe every card through the machine.
In the past, the criminals would leave their machine in place for about a month, then steal it back to get at the PIN data.
Now, they don’t ever have to touch it again.
“They now have wireless chips installed,” Kuan said.
A crook will approach with a Bluetooth-equipped PDA or computer and simply download all the stolen numbers.
Next, the organizers of the gangs will make up new cards with the same information, and send out their low-level runners to extract cash from ATMs.
“These guys are just recruited on the street,” said Kuan.
The organizers use some unusual methods to control their runners. In some cases, the organizers co-ordinate a spree of debit fraud by giving the runners small safes packed with debit cards. At the appointed hour, the runners are sent a text message with the safe’s combination. They open it and set off to get as much cash as possible, moving from bank machine to bank machine.
The runners must keep the cash and receipts from the ATMs they hit, Kuan said.
While police haven’t had any reports of violence in these groups, it’s possible that violence is used to keep the runners from ripping off the organizers, Kuan said. A runner beaten for skimming money wouldn’t come forward to police.
Some of those arrested have police records for violence, although not linked to the skimming operations.
At least three separate groups are operating right now in Canada, with between three and 30 people involved at any one time. Many seem to be based out of Montreal, but the criminals will fly their whole gangs around the country, ripping off small towns and big cities alike.
Unlike a drug-running gang member, most of the debit scammers have a fairly high level of education and are skilled with computers and electronics.
While they could get legitimate jobs, they find crime more lucrative.
The best way to protect yourself against the PIN-thieving gangs is to change your PIN on a regular basis, Kuan noted.
For businesses, the RCMP is running programs such as Project Protect, which involves training employees to check the serial number on their PIN pads after stores close.
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