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New campaign to combat ATM fraud launched

The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is launching a new campaign to stop ATM fraud following reports that more than 100 Sparkasse customers’ accounts were recently compromised in apparent skimming attacks.

Published: 18 August 2011 10:24 CEST

New campaign to combat ATM fraud launched

Photo: DPA

From October the BKA plans to work with banks to identify more flexible and rapid ways to exchange information and to develop common defence strategies, BKA head Jörg Ziercke told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung on Thursday.

Ziercke did not go into further detail. A BKA spokesman confirmed the new partnership but also declined further detail.

But Ziercke told WAZ that new strategies were needed to attack fraud, and particularly skimming, in which customers’ ATM card details can be captured by a thief who simply puts a recording device over an ATM.

About 190,000 German consumers are affected each year by skimming, while 60 to 70 customers can be hit in one attack on an ATM.

Ziercke said police were scrambling to stay on top of new, emerging fraud techniques. With the explosion of computer use, thieves have been adopting more sophisticated methods of operation.

“The perpetrators’ methods are getting more sophisticated,” he said. “The theft of credit card data and subsequent fraudulent use has become ‘established.’”

DPA/The Local/mdm

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German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

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