Feds Pursue Greenwood Credit Union ATM Skimmer in Ecuador

Warwick, RI – The US Attorney’s Office is seeking the extradition of a New York man in Ecuador indicted Wednesday on federal charges of conspiracy bank fraud and aggravated identity theft for skimming $709,597.50 from 1,329 ATM accounts at Warwick’s Greenwood Credit Union and area banks.

A federal arrest warrant has been issued for Carlos Cisneros, 53, of Jackson Heights, NY, who, along with Moises Morales Cano, 31, of Astoria, NY, is charged with skimming from ATMs at Warwick’s Greenwood Credit Union, Bank Newport locations in Johnston and Barrington, at First Niagra Bank in Norwalk CT and at Fairfield City Bank in Wilmington, CT.

“We are going to make efforts to extradite him (Cisneros) back to the states to face these charges,” said Jim Martin, spokesman for the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in RI.

Warwick Police Detectives spent a month analyzing video and financial records after the first reports of money skimmed from Greenwood Credit Union accounts in March, identifying Cano and Ciseros as the suspects, and arrested them April 4. At the time, the two were charged with taking a combined $65,000 from 125 Greenwich Credit Union customers’ accounts, police report.

Each man was released on bail from RI District Court on May 5 in RI District Court, according to court records, before federal authorities connected them to the more widespread thefts.

Cano was taken into custody again Sept. 18, when he appeared in U.S. District Court in Providence to answer another federal charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft from Sept. 9, 2014.

ATM skimming devices, such as those used by Cisneros and Cano, attach to an ATM to intercept debit card information from the magnetic strip on customers’ ATM cards.  The customers’ PINs are obtained through the attachment to the ATM of a custom fit plastic panel above the keypad, which houses a miniature remote camera that records the customers’ fingers as they enter their PINs into the ATM.  Later, the stolen debit card information and PINs are downloaded to a computer and re-encoded onto counterfeit debit cards with a magnetic encoder. The information obtained is later used to make fraudulent transactions from the accounts of unknowing victims, according to US District Attorney Peter Neronha’s office.

The United States Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Secret Service and the Warwick Police Department cooperated on the federal investigation with the assistance of the Smithfield, East Providence, Cranston and Johnston Police Departments.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee H. Vilker.