£1.2m skimming gang jailed

A GANG of illegal immigrants led by a crime boss who should have been kicked out of the country have been jailed for a cash machine plot.

The five Romanians, who stole at least £640,000, stuck false fronts to ATMs across London to skim unwitting customers' cards and film their Pin numbers being entered.

Ringleader Gheorghe Banu, 54, had already been recommended for deportation to Romania after he was jailed for four years for a similar fraud, but the Home Office allowed him to walk free after serving his prison term. He was sentenced to six years and told that he would first have to serve the outstanding 18 months of his previous jail term.

Deputy Anton Stoica, 33, also has previous convictions for similar crimes and was wanted for a cash machine fraud when the gang were caught in February.

Gang members Diego Urgnani, 23, Adi Matei, 30, and Ana Sandu, 33, had managed to enter the country illegally. All five have admitted conspiracy to defraud between December 2002 and February this year. Stoica was jailed for five years, Matei for three years, Sandu for three-and-a-half years, and Urgnani for three years.

Prosecutor Mark Fenhalls told Southwark Crown Court the potential loss to the banking industry caused by the gang was £1.2m, but only £7,500 had been recovered and no assets could be found, other than a BMW and a Chrysler. It is believed most of the cash was channelled to Romania.

Mr Fenhalls said it was 'a fruitful, well-organised and sophisticated' fraud and the gang were seen with fake ATM fronts, micro cameras, skimmers and 'all the necessary computer hardware and software required to make counterfeit cards'. He added: 'There was deliberate pillaging of accounts shortly before and after midnight - intended to extract the maximum possible value from each cloned card.'

A laptop found at the gang's safe house contained details of 1,236 bank cards. More than 634 had been used for fraud. The gang were filmed on the day of their arrest going to four cash machines.

Mr Fenhalls said: 'They are seen crowding around cash points and the false fronts are taken from under their jackets and applied using double-sided sticky tape. It takes no more than a second or two to put one of these things over the machine.

'They retreat and watch members of the public use their cards. Contained within the false fronts are micro cameras and skimmers. The customers are filmed using their Pin number. Data is skimmed off the bank card.'

The gang then took off the false front and returned to the house to clone the bank details on to other black-strip cards such as phone top-up cards.