News

Any idiot with a 3D printer can make a fake front for an ATM skimmer

However Hamid P, whom the police arrested this week in France for running a skimming operation, was no run-of-the-mill idiot.

August 22, 2014

This week, authorities in Marseilles, France, arrested a 34-year-old man identified only as "Hamid P" for using a 3D printer to make fake card slot covers for ATMs, which he then installed on machines in two cities in the south of France.

According to a report by the Daily Mail the man successfully skimmed and counterfeited ATM users' cards, which he used to steal nearly $40,000 before the skimmers were discovered.

The police had a fairly easy time identifying Hamid as the perpetrator and then tracking him back to Marseilles, as he had used an ATM card tied to his own bank account to test the skimmers.