Shop Workers Assist In Largest Bank Card Scam

In one of the largest bankcard scams ever in Ireland, over 300 people are a total of €1 million worse off.

It is understood shop and restaurant workers assisted thieves in cloning bank cards after being offered huge sums of money. The cloning took place at points of sale in shops and restaurants around Dublin in the last few weeks.

Gardaí believe criminals paid shop and restaurant workers up to ten thousand euro to skim laser cards and find out their pin numbers by looking over the shoulder of patrons - a practice called "shoulder surfing".

The criminals withdrew cash from the unsuspecting victims hailing from countries around mainland Europe, including Italy, Romania and Spain.

Most of the withdrawals took place at the end of April and in early May, and many of the customers contacted their bank to notify them of the irregularities because the banks fraud detection systems failed to pick up on the activity.

"These people were obviously working for a number of days before they were detected," said a spokeswoman for the Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO).

"A member of a criminal gang would hire someone working in a shop or restaurant. They would be offered maybe up to 10,000 euro to get card numbers. And if they have any type of criminal instincts they take the money. "

"The people behind this are quite focussed. They come in, hire people on the ground, or carry out the skimming themselves."

(DW/JM)