{"id":279896,"date":"2026-06-27T15:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/279896\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:34:14","slug":"nyc-cops-crack-down-on-atm-scammers-during-world-cup-americas-250th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/279896\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC cops crack down on ATM scammers during World Cup, America’s 250th birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

A joint city and federal task force is targeting thieves who use skimming devices to steal bank information from ATMs<\/a> ahead of the FIFA World Cup<\/a> Final and celebrations for America\u2019s 250th birthday.<\/p>\n

NYPD Det. James Lilla, of the regional Financial Crimes Task Force, said his team has been \u201cupping our operations\u201d to combat the thefts and help the tourists and locals. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the influx of people coming in for FIFA,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be out there informing people and seeing if we can develop leads on suspects who are doing the installments.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYPD Det. James Lilla, of the Financial Crimes Task Force, investigates cases of skimming, where crooks use devices to extract banking information from ATMs and steal loads of cash.
\n Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Comprised of the Secret Service and other federal and local agencies, the task force hits stores across the city looking for the devices, investigates when the thefts are reported, and tries to educate business owners and potential victims, Lilla said.<\/p>\n

The thieves \u2014 roughly 95% of whom are from Eastern Europe \u2014 use skimmers that are inserted into ATMs or point of purchase machines at stores to steal banking information that can then be added to gift cards and used to withdraw cash from ATMs, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to get into your savings, checking account, EBT account you need a PIN number,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that\u2019s where the other device comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pin pad overlay can be used to record a person\u2019s ATM pin without their knowledge.
\n Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

The \u201cPIN capture device\u201d is a tiny pin hole camera that records as a customer enters their PIN on a machine\u2019s pad.<\/p>\n

The crooks can also use a \u201cPIN pad striker,\u201d which captures the PIN as a person enters it and stores it on a tiny motherboard.<\/p>\n

The scammers can also use a \u201cshimmer card\u201d to get data from a chip, including PIN numbers, and then transmit the information to the crooks via Bluetooth wireless technology, Lilla said.<\/p>\n

Police have upped their skimming prevention and investigation operations since the FIFA World Cup began. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

Victims ranged from food stamp clients who have their benefits stolen to those who lost \u201cwell over a million dollars\u201d in the scams, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery bank is hit throughout the entire city, from the Upper East Side all the way down to Brownsville,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

ATMs and point of sale terminals aren\u2019t the only places crooks can steal data. Lately, they\u2019ve been targeting the city subway system\u2019s OMNY vending machines, police said.<\/p>\n

There are several types of devices that are used to steal information from magnetic strips and chips to create fake ATM cards and withdraw millions of dollars around the region, officials said. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a crime that knows no bounds and it affects people from every walk of life, all the way from millionaires to people on EBT,\u201d said Sgt. Matt Doherty, taskforce boss.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhen we see large events, we know that our criminals are going to try to exploit this opportunity knowing that there are going to be millions of people here celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A joint city and federal task force is targeting thieves who use skimming devices to steal bank information…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[106293,303,44571,40550,57,9,56,63,65,64,103,104,9302,101260,58],"class_list":["post-279896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-atm","tag-crime","tag-fifa-club-world-cup","tag-fourth-of-july","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-police","tag-secret-service","tag-skimming","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}