Three Romanians at the centre of an ATM scam, whereby accounts were illegally hacked into, have been sentenced at Wicklow Circuit Court to four years in prison.
Sorin Condrache, Daniela Ciocan and Rasvan Schiopu pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to theft before Judge Pat McCartan.
A raid on their apartment in Bray uncovered false ATM fronts, a number of digital cameras, €20,000 in cash and home-made loyalty cards.
Det Garda Ciarán McCarthy of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigations said he became aware of the two male defendants after receiving reports of suspicious behaviour near an ATM machine at Whitehall, Bray, in July 2005.
A car with Condrache and Schiopu was stopped and inside items such as home-made loyalty cards, double-sided sticky tape and an unidentified silver object were found.
On September 10th, two customers at a Bank of Ireland ATM in Deansgrange, Dublin, became suspicious and, after fiddling with the machine, a silver tube with a small camera peeking out of a hole fell down.
Condrache and Schiopu approached them and made off with everything apart from the tube.
CCTV footage from September 9th, 10th and 11th showed the two defendants approaching the machine and appearing to do something to it. At one stage Ciocan was seen standing at the front of the queue while the two men were at the machine.
On September 29th, a search warrant was obtained for the premises where all three were living. In various rooms throughout the apartment, two false ATM fronts, 100 home-made loyalty cards, €20,000 and skimmer units were found. Some sheets of paper were also uncovered with numbers written on them.
According to Det Garda McCarthy, these contained customers' pin numbers which had been filmed with the digital camera and would later be matched with the card data that was skimmed.
Judge McCartan said the scheme was "highly sophisticated" and only uncovered because of some good police work.
The final year of their four-year sentence will be suspended on the condition that they leave the jurisdiction within seven days of their release.
They have been in custody since September 2005 and the sentences start from that date.