News

Europol busts cross-continental card skimming ring, warns of magnetic strip vulnerability

July 13, 2011

Finextra is reporting that European and U.S. law enforcement agencies have busted a cross-continental card skimming gang suspected of stealing more than EUR50 million from banks and consumers.

The focus of the operation, codenamed Operation Night Clone, was Bulgaria, where 150 police officers arrested 47 suspects. Nine suspects were arrested in Italy, two in the U.S., two in Spain and one in Poland.

The Bulgarian ringleaders are also being linked to criminal cells in Kenya, South Africa and the U.S. Europol said the gang used cards skimmed in European countries to loot accounts in non-EMV-compliant regions such as the U.S. and Africa.

"This investigation has given us a unique insight into the skimming phenomenon. It highlights the fact that illegal credit card transactions outside the EU are a major part of the problem, and that as long as cards have magnetic strips they will be vulnerable to skimming," said Rob Wainwright, director of Europol.

According to the article, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has been leading the push for the U.S. to transition to EMV-compliant cards. Executive vice president Richard Oliver wrote in the Fed's Portals and Rails blog in October of last year: "If we want to mitigate the possibility of the United States being a centre of card fraud and enable our consumers and business folks to travel abroad more easily, it may be time to charge someone in government with developing a well-thought-out, participatory, multi-year plan to move this country to the emerging global payments card standard."