News

New Zealand police get Interpol help to track ATM skimming

April 12, 2006

Bloomberg: New Zealand police have tapped Interpol to help track fraudsters after the country had its first cases of skimming. Bank of New Zealand Ltd., the nation's third-largest bank by assets, identified about 100 fraudulent transactions worth NZ $100,000 (U.S. $62,000) after authorities discovered skimming devices on three Auckland ATMs last month.

New Zealand, with a population of 4.1 million, has 2,300 ATM machines that process some 210 million transactions a year. The affected BNZ machines were used by customers of other banks, who also lost money, she said. In Australia, skimming by criminal gangs gleans approximately AUS $100 million (U.S. $73 million) per year and accounts for half of all credit card fraud, according to Australian government figures.