ATM fraud: Cops tracking down Romanian’s cohorts

CEBU, Philippines - Police authorities are now trying to trace the reported cohorts of the Romanian national arrested in Cebu City for illegally withdrawing money from the bank accounts of European cardholders.

Suspect Gheorge Stretcu has admitted to be a member of a syndicate based in Europe that hacks bank accounts of Europeans and sends some members to other countries with reportedly weak security in automated teller machines.

Superintendent Romeo Santander, chief of the City Intelligence Branch, said the 32-year-old suspect told them that there  were many of them all around the Philippines who could illegally withdraw at least millions of pesos every day.

“We are now conducting follow-up about that matter. He mentioned some names and we passed it to the (Romanian) consulate for verification,” said Santander.

He said they are also taking into consideration that Stretcu might just have been making names to mislead the investigation.

He said if the consulate has records of the names mentioned by Stretcu, they will then monitor the addresses to eventually trace these other syndicate members.

Santander said they are also trying to find out Stretcu’s local contact that could have facilitated his stay here.

“Atong gi-presume nga naa g’yud kay for sure, di gud sila suhito diri nga lugar. Nag-monitor na g’yud mi ana,” said Santander.

He said the suspect also admitted to them that the syndicate has a contact from their target banks in Europe that would help them in hacking accounts.

“Good thing that no one from our country was victimized but they (European card holders) were victimized. Looy ba kay they worked hard for the money unya mawala lang nila,” said Santander.

Santander still reminded all ATM cardholders in the country to be always vigilant with their cards to avoid falling victims to hackers.

“We don’t know, someday, this will become a perennial problem until this will penetrate in our local banks,” he warned.

Yesterday, Santander said, they have already extracted information from the reward cards confiscated from Stretcu with the help of a legal banking expert which could help strengthen their case against the foreigner.

The CIB chief said Stretcu’s case, though, is bailable, but they will see to it that the suspect will be deported.  (FREEMAN)