City of San Fernando, Pampanga – – Banks no longer safe?
This came as 3 foreign nationals were arrested on the act of withdrawing money using fake Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) cards from whom almost P340,000 cash and 152 cloned ATM cards were seized last Monday night (July 24).
The arrest of the 3 foreigners was announced by Police Region 3 Director PCSupt Aaron Aquino in a press briefing at Camp Olivas.
Aquino identified those apprehended as Radu Minodor SANDOR, 43 years old, Nicaraguan; Marcu BOGDAN, 26 years old, Italian and Petro Ioan UVEGES, 44 years old, Romanian, a holder of a Hungarian passport bearing the name Balazs VARGA.
Uveges is married to a Filipina identified as Michelle Trajano with whom he has two (2) sons.
The 3were caught while withdrawing cash at aBPI Family bank branch along the Mac Arthur Highway in Barangay San Agustin, here.
A couple of weeks ago BPI, one among the “conservative” universal bank, was rocked when more than a thousand bank clients complained of having their deposits skimmed,or their deposits mysteriously withdrawn by other person some amounting to hundreds of thousands in cash.
The bank, however, to this day refused to disclose how many millions were “illegally withdrawn” from their clients’ deposits but one client claimed she lost more than P3 Million.
Also last week, the Metropolitan Bank of the Philippines (Metrobank) was also “shaken” when one of its ranking officer “diverted” around P900 Million deposit.
Few years back, members of a large syndicate of foreigners were arrested in Cebu also for using clone ATM cards of many banks in that city.
The Central Bank of Bangladesh was likewise victimized by “hi-tech bank robbers” when more than $81 Million (around P43 Billion) of its deposits were diverted to Philippine casinos thru the local banks which whereabouts are still unknown despite a senate inquiry.
Sought for comment, a local employee bank who requested her name withheld said, “computerization of the banking system have brought positive and negative results. Banks are now very systematic but the system is sometimes vulnerable and intruded by IT experts”.
Similar to the Cebu City syndicate, the 3 arrested expatriates use a “skimming device” placed on top of ATM keypad. If not noticed by ATM users, the device copies and records the details of an ATM card including PIN number of the depositor.
The recorded data of the depositors are then “encrypted” in a clone ATM card enabling the syndicate to withdraw money from the account.
According to the Central Bank of the Philippines (BSP), over P100 million were reported lost due to card skimming in 2015 alone.
In the press briefing, Aquino urged depositors to be more vigilant in using their ATM cards and make use of bank advisories against bank scam.
“Let me also take this opportunity to remind the public to be more cautious in withdrawing their hard earned money in the ATM machines. There are several advisories and precautionary measures as well as safety tips being issued by the Bankers Association of the Philippines and commercial banks that the public may put into use to prevent them from being victims of similar incidents”, Aquino said.
“Ang maayos at masigasig na pagpapatupad ng batas, pagsawata sa lahat ng uri ng kriminalidad at pagpapanatili ng kaayusan, katahimikan at kapayapaan ng sambayanan ay tungkuling walang humpay na ginagampanan ng kapulisan, ngunit ang kapulisan ay magiging matagumpay lamang sa tulong ng iba’t-ibang sektor ng lipunan,” Aquinostressed.
The 3 arrested “bank defrauders” are presently under the custody of the city’s police station. Cases for Violation of RA 848l (Access Device Regulation Act) and Violation of section 33 of RA 8792 (E-commerce law) have been charged against them./Nelson Bolos