{"id":165521,"date":"2026-02-05T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/165521\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T18:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:54:07","slug":"orange-county-sheriffs-department-warns-against-distraction-theft-crimes-involving-atms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/165521\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Sheriff&#8217;s Department warns against distraction theft crimes involving ATMs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. (KABC) &#8212; The Orange County Sheriff&#8217;s Department is sounding the alarm on what they&#8217;re calling distraction theft crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to a <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DUWCzZZjGZn\/Slug\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">post shared on the department&#8217;s Instagram<\/a>, three Romanian nationals were arrested in a distraction theft crime operation involving several counties and at least a dozen victims across California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Video shared by the sheriff&#8217;s department shows two suspects walking behind a man as he&#8217;s entering his PIN number at an ATM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;As the victim gets ready to complete his transaction, one suspect drops money at the victim&#8217;s feet, causing the victim to bend down and pick it up,&#8221; read the department&#8217;s Instagram post. &#8220;While the victim was distracted, a second suspect swapped the victim&#8217;s ATM card with a fraudulent one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Authorities said the thefts happen fast and are not limited to ATM transactions. They said criminals may also try to steal PIN codes while people wait in line at grocery stores or other businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The sheriff&#8217;s department urges people to stay vigilant and always cover the keypad when entering your PIN number.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. (KABC) &#8212; The Orange County Sheriff&#8217;s Department is sounding the alarm on what they&#8217;re calling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[79874,163,165,164],"class_list":["post-165521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-79874","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}