BankersOnline Security Spotlight

A banking office is robbed after a criminal evaluates the office to determine which teller he is going to target.The most likely place from which he will observe the teller line is from the check-writing desk.The best way to stop this action is to turn the check writing desk completely around so that the customers'/robbers' backs face the teller line. Anyone now trying to observe the teller line would be noticed quickly by staff.
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BVL Vol. 26: Effective Robbery Response & Opening Procedure





Robbery Suppression & Apprehension
The SAFECATCH Strategy


Welcome to the August Issue of Security Spotlight
Two topics dominate this issue of the Security Spotlight: "Ladies" (if you use the term loosely) and Card Skimming. The first may be surprising, but the second could knock your socks off. There are some interesting stats in the Alerts & Counterfeits section,and a very unusual bandit described in the Security Blog!

'Ladies Day' at the Bank?
We've Come a Long Way, Baby...Women are seeking equal opportunity in corporate leadership, competitive athletics, the presidential politics of the United States...and bank robbery! The rise in the number of female bank robbers indicates that robbing banks is no longer just for the guys. Two recent, but unrelated, Tucson-area bank robberies were both pulled off by women. Walking into the Bank of the West on July 21, a woman described as white, about 5'6" tall and between 60 and 70 years old, armed with a gun instead of a withdrawal slip, demanded money from the teller. She fled the scene in a white Hyundai Tiburon coupe with a spoiler and dark tinted windows.

Two days later, another female, possibly white or Hispanic, 5'2 or 5'4", aged 20-25, her face coyly covered with what could be a doily or a diaper, hit a Bank of America branch. Handing the teller a note demanding money, she indicated she had a gun, but never showed the alleged weapon. Neither suspect had a man present, not even driving the getaway car. Maybe their "better halves" were home playing Mr. Mom.

Some Days...Bank Robbery is a Drag Sometimes the "best laid plans of Mice and Men often go awry". Donning a woman's blond wig, clown pants worn with fake breasts under a blue sweater, and armed with a toy BB gun he had earlier shoplifted, Dennis Hawkins, 48, thought he had the perfect disguise and plan to rob a bank in Swissvale, PA. As if the bizarre disguise wasn't enough, Hawkins didn't bother to shave his beard! After the robbery, he ran to a woman's car at a nearby gas station. She got out of the car, taking her keys, and called the police. When the police arrived, they found him just sitting there waiting, covered in red from the exploding dye pack.

The images of bank bandits captured on bank surveillance video are getting better and sharper, that camera angles are smarter, and some of the photos of the unknown robbery suspects should make it quite easy to identify the perp, if only the right person is reviewing the pictures.That's why we ask banks to circulate the link to the page to all their staff. You never know when the bad guy (or gal) is going to turn out to be someone's neighbor, their kid's daycare worker, or a current or former customer. Look at this month's photos, then go back and look at the ones we featured in 2002.



A Little from All Over ...

Emptying your Pockets -Thefts help empty your pockets in many ways. ATM theft is one way that is growing fast. In fact, the United States Secret Service recently said that ATM skimming was the fastest growing electronic fraud, with losses estimated at $1 billion. The average skimming incident lasts only two hours, but it costs the bank $30,000. Skimming losses are estimated to be ten times that of robberies.

Card Skimmers at Gas Pumps -Card skimmers were recently found on the pumps at thirty service stations following I-25 in Colorado. One bank that was having to reissue a large number of debit/credit cards looked for a pattern based on customer withdrawals. It found that virtually all the customers had purchased gas along this route. As they worked their investigation, local law enforcement and Secret Service left bulletins at service stations to make attendants aware of the scam.This was to help make the attendants aware of what was happening. It is believed the thieves may have driven traffic to the rigged pumps by telephoning some of the victims, promising them gift cards if they purchased gas at those stations.

Bluetooth takes a Bite! -In Alachua County, FL, the sheriff's department released this photo of part of a skimming device. Law enforcement is looking for similar devices at service stations along I-75. They are Bluetooth-enabled and can even tap into the power source of the gas pump rather than use rechargeable batteries. With Bluetooth, the thieves can download card data to a laptop while sitting in their car. The pumps furthest away from the store, those hardest for the clerks to monitor, are the ones more commonly rigged. At most ATMs there are signs that the machine has been fitted with a skimmer, but this is noticable only if the customer is familiar with the machine. At the gas pumps, these devices usually fit inside the pump and are not readily visilbe from the outside.

ATM with a Speaker -Thieves are getting much more high tech at ATMs, though. Here is a YouTube video depicting a wireless transmitter hidden in a speaker on the ATM. In this case, losses attributed to these devices are estimated to be in the $300,000 range. Speakers are unusual at ATMs; this one was detected by a customer.

Shimming at the ATM - ATM shimming is increasing - shimming - a new process whereby a card holds a shim that is only 0.1mm thick. To visualize this, your ATM card is 0.76mm thick, and human hair is 0.18mm thick. The card carrying shim is inserted in the ATM card reader where it can be deposited inside the machine, over the ATM card reader. This image shows graphically what this looks like.

The shim is inserted between the card and the ATM card reader and is able to capture all the information on the magnetic strip. There is no mechanical resolution yet to these micro-thin devices. (These shimming devices were discussed at length in Network World on July 11, 2010. Security Spotlight is not publicizing an otherwise unknown vulnerability.)

All in a Weekend's Work -Skimming is not restricted to the US. In Canada, a man was skimming credit and debit cards and withdrawing cash. Police were alerted when the hotel staff where he was staying called them, saying that large amounts of cash were seen in his room. (Who but a thief would leave cash in his room to be found? Certainly, it wasn't his money.) Police found $100,000 in $20 bills, and believe that he skimmed 600 cards over one weekend!

Toys and Yawns -"Traditional" robberies are still happening too. In San Diego, the FBI is looking for the "Skateboard Bandit". This young man holds a skateboard under his arm as he robs banks. He has already robbed a Wells Fargo branch and a Comerica Bank. He flashes a handgun so that the tellers know he is serious, but even without a skateboard, few serial robbers are as busy as the "Ho Hum Bandit". He is believed to have robbed a dozen banks in the San Diego, Riverside, and Orange County area. The Ho Hum Bandit has a $15,000 reward out now, contributed by U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, CitiBank and the FBI.

Gotcha! -On a brighter note, the "Burly Bandit" has been arrested. Robert Ferguson, a Greyhound bus driver, is believed to have robbed eleven banks. He was arrested after robbing the Bangor Savings Bank in Orono, ME. Between April and July, ten banks in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were robbed by a man fitting Ferguson's description. Police are still putting together their investigation to determine if he will be charged with all of these robberies.

Alerts & Counterfeits
This month we'll quickly review July alerts and counterfeit notices, but will also provide you with a recap notices received in the first half of the year. July had only eleven reports. Seven of these were Counterfeit Cashier's Checks, three Counterfeit Official Checks and one Treasury Check. All were reports from the FDIC and in all, eight states had banks with reports. TX had three reports, Virginia had two and there was one each from FL, IL, OH, RI SC and WA.

One of the counterfeit cashier's checks was described as "?very similar to authentic cashier's checks; however, the payee name and date are handwritten." More than one other bulletin described the counterfeit checks as "markedly dissimilar to authentic checks", but unless you are familiar with the genuine item how would you know? By reviewing the counterfeit notices, or our daily recap in the Compliance Briefing, you would know the items for which your tellers should be watching.

From January through June there were 97 items reported, averaging 16 per month.Thirty-three states had counterfeit items. The table below identifies the states and their count. The largest number were from Texas (9) followed by Florida (8) and Illinois and New Jersey (6). The other 29 states had five or less.

Counterfeit Cashier's Checks62Counterfeit Checks6Counterfeit Missouri Dept. of Revenue Checks6Counterfeit Money Orders2Counterfeit Official Bank Checks1Counterfeit Official Checks17Counterfeit Personal Money Orders2Missing Cashier's Checks1Cashier's checks are still the counterfeit item of choice. They're easier to negotiate becauseby the UCC and Reg CC they are treated as safer items.During your teller training, your staff needs to understand this is not always true.

Out of this six month period, there were only 25 days when reports were made.
The easiest way to ensure you don't miss a notification is to read your daily Compliance Briefing or check our Alerts and Counterfeits page.

No Summer Vacation for Criminals
The pace of alerts from BOL CrimeDex continued in July. Lowell, Massachusetts police began the month with an alert on a known forged check passer who had already victimized two banks, a credit union and a pharmacy. That was quickly followed by good news from California's Morro Bay police, that a man charged with fraud and attempted murder had been caught. A Salem, Oregon alert told a sad story of a recently released offender who has repeatedly drawn attention to himself and his unemployment (which he blames on illegal workers), by saying that he wants to be in jail, and then robbing stores and banks and threatening worse to get himself arrested. A July 9 alert about a thief that had hit several California Macy's jewelry counters caught the eye of a parole officer who recognized the suspect as a current "client" of her office. The suspect was arrested shortly thereafter, according to a follow-up alert.

Finally, two other alerts described sophisticated methods that have been developed for skimming cards at ATMs. Recent skimming attacks on ATMs have involved micro-transmitters and stealth card reader inserts that can go undetected for longer periods of time because they are entirely within the ATM card reader mechanism. ATM service personnel will have to revise their inspection routines to uncover these surreptitious skimming tools.

Alerts like these and others help keep BOL CrimeDex subscribers current on scam techniques, suspects operating in their areas, and other threats to their institution's security. For more information, check out BOL CrimeDex.


Have YOU Registered Yet? Don't miss out!

Do you need to liven up your security training a little? How about using some images of bizarre bandits? While serious, you can still chuckle at some of these robberies after the fact and still awareness that anyone could be a robber whether dressed as Santa or Darth Vader.

We also provide you with a map that has crime report statistics from various law enforcement agencies. This may be useful when you need statistics for a new ATM or branch.

You'll find more on each of these on our Security Blog.

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