July 16, 2004

U.S. BANK OFFICIALS TO THANK ROMANIANS FOR SHUTTING DOWN FRAUD OPERATIONS

Officials from the U.S.- based Bank of America will visit Romania next week to thank Romanian Police and the U.S. Secret Service for their assistance, and for their international cooperation in arresting those responsible for large scale "phishing" and ATM fraud operations in Constanta.

The word "phishing" in this instance, refers to the cloning of the U.S. bank's website by individuals for the purpose of deceiving the bank's customers, in order to provide themselves with personal and specific credit card account information, later used to either manufacture counterfeit credit cards, and/or fraudulently purchase merchandise over the Internet.

The suspects also used re-encoded counterfeit credit cards to withdraw cash from ATM machines in the Constanta area.

During the course of the investigation, some 126 individual phishing sites were discovered, investigated and shut down with the help and assistance of police.

Financial losses are estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and hundreds of counterfeit credit cards are believed to have been used, some seized, and some not yet reported to the police by the other banks.

Four individuals were arrested for a variety of law violations, and are now in custody awaiting trail. The defendants were identified as GHIATA, Mihai; MATEI, Claudiu; BALAN, Alexandru; FOTU, Gabriel; FOARFECA, and Daniel Iulian.