By Kevin Schofield, The Scotsman (United Kingdom)
al-Qaeda is using credit and ATM card fraud to steal cash from bank accounts in Britain and the rest of Europe to fund its activities across the world, according to a French anti-terrorism official.
Jean-Louis Brugiere, France’s top anti-terrorism judge, said radical Islamic cells in Europe were using sophisticated equipment to “clone” the card details of cash machine users.
He said the terrorists were then creating fake cards and using them to withdraw hundreds of thousands of pounds and euros a month.
“These are cards that I call clones,” he said. “They are very difficult to catch.”
The judge said authorities uncovered the cash machine scheme two years ago when investigators found an Islamic terrorist finance cell operating in France.
Ten suspected Islamic militants were withdrawing more than ?50,000 a month from cash machines in other European countries, where they were arrested.
“The [Islamic] European networks finance themselves primarily through microfinancing systems - criminal activity that is very profitable,” he said.
The claims come amid warnings that al-Qaeda is preparing for an attack on a key maritime target in the next 12 months on the scale of the atrocities it unleashed in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. In March this year, the threat to Europe was made clear when bombs planted by Islamic militants on rush hour trains in Madrid killed 191 people.
The Association for Payment Clearing Services has reported that cash machine fraud has grown by 85 per cent to ?61 million in the UK over the past year. In Scotland, it has gone up by 134 per cent to almost ?1.9 million.
The organisation has identified a number of ways in which criminal gangs steal cash-card details from members of the public and then use them to access their bank accounts.
One is known as “shoulder surfing”, where criminals stand close to a cash machine user, take a note of their Personal Identification Number and then steal their card.
Card-trapping devices are used to retain the card inside the cash machine while the criminal tricks the user into re-entering their PIN, which they then memorise.
APACS says one of the main reasons for the rise in cashcard fraud is the increase in so-called “skimming” devices, which are attached to the card entry slot on the machine and record the magnetic stripe details without the customer’s knowledge.
Miniature cameras can also be hidden over the PIN keypad to record the card number.
In January, three asylum seekers were convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from bank accounts after cloning cash-card details.
Remus Chirila, Adina Chirila and Adrian Manteanu, who were all from Romania, admitted fixing intricate machines into the door-swiping mechanisms of two HSBC branches in Barnsley and Rotherham, which copied account details.
They also attached a tiny camera above the machines’ keyboards to record the card’s PIN. The footage was beamed back to a laptop owned by the gang members, who then accessed the accounts.
Although APACS insists that card fraud represents less than 0.05 per cent of the ?114 billion withdrawn from cash machines in the UK, it has issued advice to members of the public on how to avoid becoming a victim.
It says that if cash machine users see any signs of tampering they should report it to the bank immediately.
People should also refuse help from apparently well-meaning strangers and never allow themselves to be distracted during the transaction, the organisation says.
Any receipts, statements or balance details should also be torn up before being discarded, APACS warn.
Yesterday Mark Bowmer, a spokesman for APACS, said: “Cash machines are our most commonly used and most convenient way to access money, with 75 cash withdrawals made every second.
“The vast majority of all these withdrawals are fraud-free - and the banking industry is working hard with the police to keep it this way.
“People should remain vigilant at all times when using cash machines. If they see something suspicious or see people hanging around for no apparent reason they should cancel their transaction and move to another cash machine.”
The rise in cash machine fraud is just one example of the so-called “identity thefts” carried out by criminal gangs.
These includes credit card fraud, which enables criminals to obtain goods or cash on the phone or the internet.
Last night, Professor Paul Wilkinson, the chairman of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrews University, welcomed the judge’s comments and said he hoped it would help to focus the minds of the intelligence services.
He said: “The fact is that terrorists are using crime extensively in order to fund their activities, and just as some groups have become more sophisticated in the way they carry out their terrorism, so they have also become more sophisticated in terms of how they raise funds.
“Cash machine fraud is one of the methods they are using and it is extremely difficult to combat.”