Romanian falls over card modus

CEBU, Philippines – A Romanian national was arrested Monday morning after he was caught withdrawing money illegally from bank accounts of residents in Europe with the use of reward cards from a convenience store.

Police arrested Gheorghe Stretcu, 32, who admitted he is a member of a Europe-based syndicate that hacks bank accounts of Europeans. He reportedly made the admission during interrogation conducted by operatives of the Cebu City Intelligence Branch.

Supt. Romeo Santander, CIB chief, said they received a call last Monday morning from security officers of a certain bank regarding Stretcu’s strange actions while transacting at ATM machines.

Santander said that based on the closed circuit-television camera footage, Stretcu would insert several cards into the machine, call someone, and insert the cards again.

This reportedly caught the attention of the bank’s security officers who then called for police assistance.

When the CIB policemen came, they immediately invited Stretcu to their office and it was during questioning that they found out the Romanian national used a reward card from a convenience store worth P10 to hack the bank accounts of residents in Europe.

“That was why he was always re-entering the cards because some of them did not work and the Personal Identification Number was wrong,” Santander said.

Santander said Stretcu revealed further that each of the 90 reward card confiscated from the suspect already contains P20,000.

The trick reportedly starts with someone hacking the accounts of the credit cardholders in Europe with the use of computer software and encoding the data, such as the PIN, into magnetic strips using another gadget. The magnetic strips would then be attached to the reward cards.

Santander said Stretcu admitted there are many other members of the syndicate in the country who could withdraw millions of pesos every day.

The information Stretcu provided would be verified.

The syndicate allegedly chose the Philippines in carrying out the operation because the country allegedly has one of the weakest ATM security features in the world.

“Diri pud ilang napili kay maski pud og madakpan, ang ilang thinking, ma-deport ra man,” Santander said.

Santander admitted being surprised by the modus but said Filipinos have nothing to worry about because the targets are residents in Europe.

He said they have already coordinated with the Bureau of Immigration, Romanian Consulate and other Cyber Crime groups on the matter.

A complaint for violation Republic Act 8484 or the Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998 was filed against Stretcu yesterday.  —/JMO (FREEMAN)