Bulgarian uses "Lebanese loop" to steal 1.4 million in Serbia: No one noticed strange device on ATMs

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The police in Belgrade on Saturday arrested a Bulgarian citizen, L. V. I. (59), because he stole as much as 1.4 million dinars from ATMa with the help of forged payment cards.

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He is charged with installing a device for downloading data, the so-called Lebanese loop, on ATMs in Belgrade since November 2019, which he used to steal bank clients' data from their payment cards. After that, he made forged payment cards, into which he entered stolen data and used them to withdraw money from ATMs.

"In that way, the suspect L. V. I. stole a total of around 1,400,000 dinars from a number of citizens' accounts. The suspect was ordered to be detained for 48 hours, and will be brought before the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade along with a criminal complaint," said the Interior Ministry.

Otherwise, the police explained to the daily Informer that a "Lebanese loop" is a device that is placed on an ATM at the point where cards are inserted. It is not conspicuous and looks like a part of the ATM to a layperson. This device then reads the number of the card, based on which thieves make a fake one and use it to withdraw money from the account.

"The mechanism of the 'Lebanese loop' consists of a skimmer, which is actually a plastic case through which the card is inserted into the ATM, and special 'flash' memory, whose function is to store data from the card.  A 'Lebanese loop' is placed on an ATM, which takes only a few seconds, and is removed after a few days," the police explained and added:

"The fraudster then transfers to his computer the data of all clients who used the ATM in that period and makes forged cards. As for the PIN code, which is necessary in order to access an account, it is most often recorded with a hidden camera, but there are also devices that automatically memorize numbers that are entered after a card is inserted into an ATM."

(Telegraf.rs)