Over $600K vanishes in major bank account heist in Poland

Nearly 500 people in Poland have lost significant amounts of money from their bank accounts, compromised by skimming attacks on ATMs across the ￰0￱ authorities have launched an investigation into the well-organized criminal attempt, which has affected users of the teller machines of a major banking ￰1￱ than 2.2 million złoty drained from Santander accounts Law enforcement agencies in Poland are now working to unravel a scheme to steal funds from bank accounts in some regions of the EU ￰2￱ 200 reports of losses have been filed so far in two Polish provinces, the Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Greater Poland Voivodeships, triggering a major investigation by the District Prosecutor’s Office in the city of ￰3￱ of the complaints, received between Saturday and Monday, were about unauthorized withdrawals from accounts of customers of Santander Bank ￰4￱ Polish subsidiary of the Spanish multinational financial services company Banco Santander is the third-largest bank in the Central European country by both assets and ￰5￱ believe that behind the theft is an organized crime group, which managed to draw 2.2 million Polish złoty (almost $604,000) out if the accounts of around 490 Santander ￰6￱ figures were made public on Tuesday by Agnieszka Adamska-Okońska, deputy head of the Bydgoszcz prosecutor’s office, and quoted by the Polish TVP3 ￰7￱ noted the data is based on estimates provided by ￰8￱ bank said it’s still analyzing the ￰9￱ skimmers used to steal card data Investigators are conducting their own thorough ￰10￱ suspect that the criminals obtained the bank card information needed to steal the money by utilizing so-called “skimming” ￰11￱ were installed on ATMs used by the ￰12￱ least two of the automated teller machines are located at Santander branches in Bydgoszcz, local media reported.

A “skimmer” is usually placed over or inside the card slot of an ATM to read and record information stored on the card’s magnetic ￰13￱ data is then used to create fake cards, and the clones are employed to withdraw cash or make ￰14￱ Zagórski, spokesperson for Poland ’s Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime ( CBZC ), commented on Tuesday: “Everything indicates that we were dealing with a ‘skimming’ attack, meaning the skimming of payment card data and then using it to make unauthorized withdrawals from ATMs across the country.” Zagórski remarked that so far there has been no information about affected account holders at other banks, besides Santander, but noted that the number of victims is still growing.

“We expect more, as more people continue to report losing funds,” said the CBZC official, adding that police are now trying to gather evidence, including surveillance footage from the ATM locations where the funds were withdrawn. Meanwhile, prosecutors called on victims who haven’t reported their cases yet to do that at the nearest police station, urging Polish citizens to monitor their bank accounts for suspicious ￰15￱ Bank refunds all established victims Representatives of Santander Bank Polska said they were in close contact with law enforcement authorities while preparing to file an official criminal ￰16￱ bank took measures to prevent further theft such as blocking all cards that were, or could have been affected by the skimming ￰17￱ has already refunded customers who lost ￰18￱ a statement, it acknowledged that several hundred account holders had been affected, noting the refunds were issued ￰19￱ bank insisted the incident was of a regional nature and did not concern the overall integrity of its banking ￰20￱ also noted that only ATMs have been involved, and not any contactless ￰21￱ you're reading this, you’re already ￰22￱ there with our newsletter .