Latest credit card cloners own up to crime

| 16/05/2016 | 7 Comments

ATM scam(CNS): Two visiting foreign nationals who were rounded up by police earlier this year have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the local banking system with cloned credit cards. Adam Makdad (21) and Hakim Benomara (25), who appeared in court Friday, have been remanded in custody and are due to be sentenced on 9 June.

The two men are from Canada and they were arrested at their hotel in February after the RCIPS Financial Crime Unit received a report from a local bank regarding suspicious cards that had been retained by one of its ATMs. The men were using cloned Starbucks gift cards to scam the machines.

A growing crime in Cayman and usually part of a larger conspiracy, the courts have dealt with several similar cases over the last year where foreign nationals are entering the jurisdiction as tourists and then using cloned cards in local bank ATMs to draw cash from accounts all over the world.

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Category: Courts, Crime

Comments (7)

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  1. Crab Claw says:

    Have the police looked into who might be inviting them to the island, such a increase of them been caught, might mean we might have some resident on island scammers giving them the tip off to drop in and have their shot at our banks and shops.

  2. Anonymous says:

    They cannot be true born Canadians with names like that, I don’t care what their passports say!

  3. Anonymous says:

    A spell in Northwood followed by swift deportation required.

  4. Anonymous says:

    I guess these crooks are less ‘criminal’ than our local hoodlums??!! Perhaps our detractors would like to think so!

    • Jotnar says:

      No, they are criminals. And so are the domestic sort as well. Comparisons between the two based on citizenship or ethnicity are pathetic, although I will happily debate the relative merits of someone (local or expat) who stabs or shots somebody with someone (local or expat) who defrauds a financial institution or the Cayman government. Think anyone can think of plenty of examples of each from both sides of the local/expat divide, so lets just for once not go there.

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