Trio Made $400K Lifting PINs from ATMs, Feds Say
Three men have been indicted for going to local ATMs and putting in overlay pads to intercept and store customers' financial info, the U.S. Attorney's Office says.
Do you know where your PIN's going?
Houstonians Jason Michael Lall, 38, John Pierre Griffin, 32, and John DaSilva Paz, 27, hid themselves from security cameras by blocking them with vehicles or spray-painting them, and then installed the devices in otherwise normal-looking official bank ATMs, the USAO says. (As opposed to those semi-suspicious-looking ATMs found in some convenience stores.)
"The information captured from the various ATM machines was then re-encoded onto fraudulent cards that were used to withdraw money in excess of $400,000 from various area bank locations," the office said.
And that was in less than two years.
The three began operating in August 2009 and were arrested last month.
They "are all charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of access device fraud. Hall and Richard are also charged with two counts of aggravated identity theft, while Griffin and Paz are charged with one and three counts of aggravated identity theft, respectively," the USAO says.
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