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TMCNet: Delray man accused of swindling $45,000 from bank customers in Palm Beach County

[July 14, 2010]

Delray man accused of swindling $45,000 from bank customers in Palm Beach County

Jul 14, 2010 (Sun Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The Delray Beach man's face popped up on ATM surveillance video all over South Florida banks, police said.

But Mihai Arnautu, 31, wasn't withdrawing his own money, investigators said. He was using fake ATM cards to swindle almost $45,000 from bank customers at branches in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to an arrest report.

Arnautu was arrested and booked into the Palm Beach County jail early Tuesday on 11 counts of fraud and larceny, records show.

On Tuesday, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Krista Marx ordered him held in lieu of $68,000 bail. But he is being held without bond because of a hold from federal immigration officials.

Authorities nationwide have been pursuing criminals who clandestinely install at ATMs electronic "skimmers" that capture the customer's account number, and a separate video camera that records the customer entering the pin number on the ATM keypad.

In June, a Citibank manager told police that someone had placed a skimming device on an ATM at the bank branch at 11521 U.S. 1 in Palm Beach Gardens, the report said. Surveillance video later showed Arnautu tampering with the ATM.

The manager said 28 accounts had been compromised and more than $44,702 already had been pulled from them at ATMs in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Skimming devices are often place on ATMs to steal debit card information.

Arnautu allegedly used the stolen information to make fake debit cards and withdraw cash from Citibank branches at 998 S. Federal Highway and 3009 W. Yamato Road in Boca Raton and 7400 W. Camino Real near Boca Raton.

Boca Raton detectives began following Arnautu in July, and got court permission to attach a GPS device to his Ford van.

During that time, officers said Arnautu drove to an Oakland Park Citibank after hours and fiddled with an ATM there.

In 2008, Arnautu was arrested twice in similar cases. Once was in Boynton Beach, where he was allegedly seen removing a skimmer from a SunTrust ATM at 315 S. Federal Highway, the report said. He was also caught with a counterfeit ATM card in Broward in December, but charges were dropped.

Information from The Palm Beach Post was used in this report.

Alexia Campbell can be reached at apcampbell@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6609.

To see more of the Sun Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544).

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