Enterprising crook jailed for 10 years over money machine scam
An enterprising crook who scammed nearly 128,000 yuan (HK$151,000) by installing a dummy cash machine on a Beijing street last summer has been sentenced to a decade behind bars, mainland media reported yesterday.
The man - who was not fully identified in media reports - managed to duplicate the bank cards of 31 people who believed the machine he installed outside his own residential complex was genuine, the Beijing Times reported.
The paper said he had been sentenced to 10 years and six months in jail and fined 50,000 yuan.
In total, he had managed to steal 127,600 yuan from unsuspecting members of the public.
The machine was almost identical to an ordinary cash dispenser. But after users input their PIN code, it rejected the card and displayed the message: 'Service temporarily not available'.
The simple device contained a card reader to copy the magnetic strip on the cards and a keypad for the PIN code - with that information, the man was able to make cloned cards and remove money from real cash dispensers.
Originally from Jilin province, the culprit had lived in Beijing since he graduated from technical college in 1996 but had failed to find a steady job. Despite that he was living in a 'luxury apartment' with a monthly rent of 15,000 yuan when he was caught.
According to the press reports, the man became increasingly desperate to make money after his son was born in 2008, and discovered details about copying credit cards while surfing the internet. His first attempt at making fake cards involved installing a card reader on the door to genuine cash machines in quieter parts of Beijing and Shenyang , the capital of Liaoning province. He also fitted a digital video camera aimed at the key pad to film customers' PIN codes, which enabled him to create working duplicate cards.
However, the thief abandoned that scheme when bank staff almost caught him removing the MP4 recorders he had used to store the data. Following that incident he came up with the plan to build an entire fake machine of his own.
When the scam was first exposed in the Beijing press, it emerged that ATMs and their component parts were widely available through online stores.
Retailers said at the time that there were very few regulations to restrict trade in the equipment, with one saying that someone with a basic understanding of electronics and computers could construct a fake machine out of spares for 'around 4,000 yuan'.
Nice lifestyle
Despite being unemployed, the ATM scammer lived in an apartment for which he paid monthly rent, in yuan, of: 15,000 yuan