NYC Men Get Prison for $300K ATM “Skimming” Scheme

3 men from Brooklyn, Queens, targeted banks in northern NJ

Three New York men have been sentenced to prison for stealing nearly $300,000 by "skimming" information from ATMs at two northern New Jersey banks.

Lachezar Lazarov, Georgi Nikiforov and Viktor Kafalov are Bulgarian natives living in Queens and Brooklyn. They pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and aggravated identity theft. Their prison sentences handed down in federal court in Newark Wednesday range from 32 months to 65 months.

Prosecutors say the three men inserted an electronic device called a skimmer into ATMs at Valley National Bank branches in Nutley and Belleville in 2008. The skimmers are used with a tiny camera that records customers' personal identification numbers.

The three men loaded the information onto blank ATM cards that were then used at bank machines around the U.S.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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