By Leong Wee Keat, TODAY | Posted: 15 January 2010 2345 hrs
SINGAPORE: Eight Romanians, who were members of an international
crime syndicate, were jailed between six and nine years on Friday for
unauthorised withdrawals at automated teller machines (ATMs).
Three members - Asandi Dirpes Alin, Valeriu Georgian Dumitru and
Neagoe Marius - received heavier jail sentences of nine years each, as
they were found with a magnetic card encoder which could have been used
to make cloned ATM cards here.
Pleading for leniency, the trio's lawyers, Mr Subhas Anandan and Mr
Sunil Sudheesan, said their clients were "pawns" recruited by the
syndicate as they needed money.
They were also "mules" to bring in the card encoder and blank cards here, added the lawyers.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor David Chew argued deterrence was
needed in such cases, where foreign syndicates target Singapore's
financial systems.
Equipped with laptops, card encoders and mobile phones, they hid
cloned cards in board games like Monopoly on the flight to Singapore.
The cards were encoded with stolen ATM card data belonging to account holders in Britain.
They went to work on July 2 last year but were arrested within days. By then, they had already withdrawn more than S$20,000.
One offender, however, remains at large.
- TODAY/sc
Just depot them to Malaysia. Malaysia need them.
Romanian again? What good have they contributed to Sg?
High level people knock and killed innocent ,lives. Now low level people cheated and use clone card.
Romania! Home of the Gypsies who are the traditional thieves and robbers of Europe!
I wonder why they pick Singapore?
This is the second ATM syndicate to be busted in Singapore.