SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif- With "increased technology" comes increased risk for local consumers, that could become the target of fraud.
Now, two people are behind bars for "ATM card skimming" and three people on Friday plead guilty to similar crimes. Gervork Aroutiounyan and his Co- Conspirator Gnel Snapyan, were sentenced to jail Friday in connection with a credit card skimming case .
San Luis Obispo Police say these people found a newer way to take customers card and pin numbers. Lt. Jeff Smith says, "when they would enter the bank and they would use their ATM card, they had a micro camera installed under the ATM that would capture them entering their pin number."
These criminals would then date and time when the customer came into the match the card numbers with the pin numbers. Lt. Smith, "they had devices in their hotels and they could begin making their own cards and go to local banks or ATM and start with drawing cash."
Snapyan and Aroutiounyan, withdrew about 220-thousand dollars from more than 3-hundred victims, many of them in San Luis Obispo County. Three people in a separate scam, Santiago Alcantar, Genea Atoine and Anthony Garcia, plead guilty on Friday to similar charges of fraud and theft. They used similar tactics and stole over 2-hundred thousand dollars as well.
Both crews were committing these crimes at Chase banks, since then the customers have been reimbursed for their losses.
Recently, the Attorney General created an e-crime unit that helps law enforcement agencies with crimes involving identity theft, cyber crimes and other crimes involving technology.
