Cops arrest Romanian for tampering with ATM

Panaji: A month after Hungarian national Nare Janos, 45, was held by Porvorim police for tampering with an ATM to withdraw money, Romanian national Alexa Petrica was arrested by Panaji police at 9am on Wednesday for allegedly installing a skimmer to an ATM in the state capital. Panaji police are verifying if Petrica is the same Romanian who had accompanied Janos during the Porvorim ATM theft on February 18, but had fled the scene.
Petrica was arrested by the police after they received a complaint from the chief manager of Punjab National Bank in Panaji, Santosh Kumar Yadav, that an unknown person was detected to have tampered with one of the bank’s ATMs and installed a skimmer device on March 2 between 5.45pm and 9.45pm.

Yadav, in his complaint, said that the theft of confidential data of customers’ ATM cards had been carried out using the skimmer with the intention to cheat bank authorities.

Subsequently, when Panaji police were patrolling near the church square on Wednesday morning, they saw the foreign national Petrica, 28, moving in a suspicious manner. On seeing the police, he gave chase for 30-40m, before he was caught, said Panaji PI Sidhant Shirodkar.

The Romanian later confessed to his involvement in installing the skimmer which has since been recovered from Petrica and further investigations are under way by PI Arun Dessai.

On February 18 this year, a public sector bank customer discovered that money had been withdrawn from his account at a Chicalim ATM. The customer immediately informed his bank and police were alerted. On examining the CCTV footage of the ATM booth, the description of the accused was provided to the police. Similar tampering was soon detected at a Porvorim ATM on February 18 and the police rushed to the spot and nabbed Hungarian national Janos at Chogm Road. His partner, a Romanian, had fled the spot. Janos later refused to cooperate and divulge any details.

Janos would set up a skimmer at ATMs in an attempt to record card details of bank customers who accessed the machine. He would then try to use different cards and the details he had gathered to withdraw money fraudulently.