News

Europol operation crushes Bulgarian ATM skimming network

May 26, 2014

Bulgarian and French authorities this week brought down a “significant” Bulgarian organized crime network suspected of electronic payment and document fraud, including ATM card skimming, currency counterfeiting and drug trafficking.

“Operation Echo” resulted in 11 arrests and 29 house searches in Bulgaria, according to a Europol news release.

Police raided three skimming equipment production sites, seizing quantities of micro camera bars, card readers, pieces of electronics and plastic cards ready to be encoded.

Additional searches turned up complete equipment to produce counterfeit bankcards, including magnetic strip readers and writers, computers, phones and flash drives. Police also confiscated dozens of forged payment cards with records of PIN numbers, ready to be used at ATMs.

"This operation against payment fraud shows the international scale of organized crime, which affects citizens, businesses and our collective security,” said Europol director Rob Wainwright. “It also shows the effective and ever increasing cooperation among the international law enforcement community and their effective response to the evolving threats of organized crime."

Operation Echo brought together three separate cases, which were connected through different suspects and investigated by France and Bulgaria. The two countries established a joint investigation team in 2013, with assistance provided by Eurojust and Europol.