tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63022462009-06-17T09:58:54.164-07:00Bank Security Blog - BankersOnlineA running account of bank robberies, fraud and other financial crime.Mary Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15381679113144771864noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-6894492696801605202009-06-17T09:57:00.000-07:002009-06-17T09:58:54.172-07:00In Dedham, MA, Delroy G. Henry pushed his way into the Citizens Bank as it opened. He showed what appeared to be a pistol and wanted the employees to gather in a corner. As he was looking for the vault, the branch manager sent a text message to the Norwood branch manager and said what was happening. That triggered a call to the police who happened to be at a construction site 300 feet away. HenryAndyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-91542498651862697942009-06-10T12:05:00.000-07:002009-06-10T12:12:18.970-07:00Let's see, 1 + 1 = DumbJoseph Wade Northington, 27, of Roanoke, VA went to North Augusta, S.C. last January. When he returned to Virginia he was visiting a friend. The friend recognized Northington as the man he saw in the media, as a suspect in a bank robbery in North Augusta. The authorities were notified. Northington had a scar on his face and this was a match for the suspect. But what nailed Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-18896879532560940272009-06-05T10:15:00.000-07:002009-06-05T10:16:42.672-07:00P Poor Prior PlanningIn Daytona Beach, FL Tuesday, police arrested two bank robbers who went into he Riverside National Bank and demanded money from a teller. Randall Fredric Walker 38, and Jason Warren Dietrich 35, began their getaway in a Jeep Cherokee. The vehicle however, ran out of gas. The two robbers then fled on foot. Police found the vehicle, which was registered to Dietrich and that Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-7185745082971666712009-06-03T09:03:00.000-07:002009-06-03T09:15:47.049-07:00Quality Family TimeThey say that eating dinner together, as a family, is quality time. Whoever said that hasn't met the Clements family in Anaheim, CA. They are accused of robbing banks together.Last January 27 a branch of Bank of the West was robbed. An armed man kidnapped a teller at her home. She was forced to drive to her branch where she called another teller over to her car. The first Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-20279975441983831542009-05-28T15:15:00.000-07:002009-05-28T15:39:28.801-07:00New Types of Credit FraudInvestigators are finding that credit fraud is happening in some new ways. In Sacramento, CA one man was found to have "created" unused Social Security numbers. For people who had poor credit, he would sell them one of these numbers and associates at a furniture dealer would create credit histories for them so they could now obtain new loans. In related news, people who Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-41614993525711518702009-05-13T10:15:00.000-07:002009-05-13T10:19:36.473-07:00Social Engineering Provides High-level AccessWhile this happened in the UK, the question we need to ask ourselves is, "could this happen in my bank?"A security consultant at Siemens Enterprise Communications, Colin Greenless, used his social skills to not only enter a financial services firm that is listed on the Financial Times and Stock Exchange, but set up office. Being traded on an exchange, Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-974770568732100342009-05-12T09:46:00.000-07:002009-05-12T09:50:52.504-07:00Clear the Building before Security LeavesIn Missouri City, Texas, a robbery attempt was made at a Compass Bank branch on Tuesday, April 14. The robber concealed himself in the Men's room until 6:15, well after closing time. Only two female employees were left in the branch. While the teller drawers hadn't yet been secured, the thief demanded they open the safe. They said they could not as anotherAndyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-73295272995377027812009-05-12T09:16:00.000-07:002009-05-12T09:20:50.714-07:00Dual ControlsXu Chaofan was sentenced to to 25 years in prison. Xu Guojun was sentenced to 22 years. They were convicted of racketeering, money laundering and visa fraud. Their wives were charged with passport fraud and with helping their husbands launder money. Their wives were sentenced to eight-year prison terms.It started as far back as 1991. Xu Chaofan became vice president of a branch of Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-53908522149607882432009-04-29T16:03:00.000-07:002009-04-29T16:05:33.784-07:00Is your bank inviting robberies?I was reading an online article recently that indicated some banks have changed the typical floorplan of a branch. Now they have comfortable chairs and meeting areas with a selection of coffees, teas, magazines and toys for the kids to play with. This doesn't sound too bad. But the article noted that while this may be "customer-centric," some believe the departure Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-85327862827898979632009-03-27T11:32:00.000-07:002009-03-27T11:33:33.892-07:00Robbery Training Pays OffProvident Bank was the victim of a robbery recently. Their branch was inside a Super Fresh (grocery store) in Nottingham, MD. The employees were so fast at calling in the robbery with a description of the robber and his vehicle, that police made an arrest within five minutes. Ask yourself, at the five minute mark, would your tellers still be assembling information and Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-38161946475981474292009-02-27T15:21:00.000-08:002009-02-27T15:58:41.929-08:00FTC Reports on Most Common Complaints
The Federal Trade Commission has recently published their annual Consumer Sentinel Network report for 2008.
During 2008, the FTC received more than 1.2 million complaints. While 52 percent combined as fraud related, the single largest category of complaints were on identity theft (26%). The next largest area of complaints were on debt collector scams (9%).Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-59590432527241012912009-01-28T08:21:00.000-08:002009-01-28T08:48:29.051-08:00ID Theft Settlement - $20 MillionA data analyst from the Department of Veterans Affairs took home a laptop and an external hard drive without permission. The external drive had names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of more than 26 million veterans. It was stolen in a burglary. It took the VA three weeks to notify the veterans that may be ID theft victims as a result of this theft.Five Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-369281251898585132009-01-02T10:49:00.000-08:002009-01-02T10:52:00.988-08:00Kidnapping and Bank Robbery, Like a Hollywood MovieOn a Friday night, Yosef Tadele, Yohannes T. Surafel and a yet to be identified man, went to the Clinton, MD, home of an assistant branch manager for Suntrust Bank. They held her, her husband, and their two young children hostage. On Saturday morning, the family and Surafel were in the family's car driving to the bank where they expected her to Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-39859273034814094852008-12-01T14:15:00.000-08:002008-12-01T14:25:33.686-08:00Mom Pleads GuiltyAs a follow-up to the teenage bank robber story below, Diedre Lynn Blackburn has been sentenced to 35 years for each of the four bank robberies she was involved in. Her sentences will run concurrently and she will have to serve at least one-half before she is eligible for parole.Her son, Charles Blackburn, was tried as an adult and sentenced to 30 years for two of the robberies Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-75797440220433130872008-11-19T08:11:00.000-08:002008-11-19T08:16:33.054-08:00Shoulder Surfing and Key CuttingShoulder surfing used to be a way to get a PIN number for an ATM. And it used to be that to make a duplicate of a key, a physical key such as is in your pocket or purse right now, you took it to a locksmith or store. The original was needed to make a duplicate. In the movies they'd press the key in soap or clay and make a duplicate from that impression. But we've Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-34864507768968484072008-11-18T10:25:00.000-08:002008-11-18T10:38:19.877-08:00It is a crying shame.On January 10 and 30, a 16 year old boy entered a Bank of America branch in Round Rock, TX which is outside Austin. Charles Blackburn had an unloaded BB gun and he robbed the bank. Now, at 17, he was tried as an adult and is sentenced to 30 years in prison. He'll be eligible for parole in 15 years. He was charged in connection with other robberies as well, but has not been Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-62689456954229530222008-11-10T14:22:00.000-08:002008-11-10T14:29:12.334-08:00Three Plead Guilty in Card FraudIvan Biltse, Angelina Kitaeva and Yuriy Rakushchynets are three of ten suspects accused of using hacked ATM card numbers and stealing $2 million. While the cards were Citibank branded, they were actually owned by Cardtronics, of Houston, TX.A Russian hacker accessed a server that processed transactions from 7-Eleven stores. He captured thousands of card numbers andAndyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-34143329695324396282008-10-27T09:41:00.000-07:002008-11-03T13:22:44.729-08:00Special Agent Larry Carr of the Seattle Division of the FBI, has provided another 911 call from a Seattle bank robbery. There are lessons to be learned from these calls and Agent Carr's analysis, which follows:In this robbery the suspect had been gone for almost six minutes when the police were contacted. After the robber exited, the victim employee activated her alarm. She then notified her Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-27367431575235712052008-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:002008-10-19T11:05:54.167-07:00Special Agent Larry Carr of the Seattle Division of the FBI, has provided this 911 call from a Seattle bank robbery. It is the standard. Larry says that he has a box full of these tapes. The call was five minutes late and made by the person who had no idea what was going on. This is an easy fix but it takes the banker to do that. The teller must make the 911 call, she must make it as the Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-2714107072146468852008-09-23T03:38:00.000-07:002008-09-23T03:39:21.624-07:00FBI Annual Report - Crime in the United StatesIf you are interested in statistics or want to see how you may compare to others, teh FBI released their annual report on crime statistics. Did you know that the highest average dollar loss for robberies was for banks, which lost $4,201 per offense. But of the subcategories under Robbery, banks have the lowest share at 2.1 percent. You can find a linkAndyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-52440861373878384072008-09-23T02:44:00.000-07:002008-09-23T02:46:44.258-07:00Robber get 300 Years, Co-defendant got 42In Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas, Jason Montes was sentenced to more than 300 years in jail and was ordered to pay restitution of more than $126,000 for his role in nine 2006 takeover style bank robberies. Montes is 21 years old.Montes was one of three who would dress in black and carry large caliber handguns. They would threaten bank employees and Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-31568351934752498182008-08-07T09:37:00.000-07:002008-08-07T09:38:07.521-07:00Mortgage Fraud is Increasing - Get ReadyThe FBI has made over 400 arrests in Operation Malicious Mortgage. In Florida, as a part of the FBI investigation, three men from Sarasota and one from Tampa are facing federal charges. A 47-count indictment against Neil Mohamed Husani, 38; Larry P. Nardelli, 49; Michael A. Tringali, 46; and John A. Yanchek, 48, from the U.S. Attorney accuses them of Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-59049134484390436652008-08-06T10:43:00.000-07:002008-08-06T11:00:59.659-07:00In March of this year Gartner Inc. surveyed a small number of banks (50) to determine how they were handling the various security threats that they're now exposed to. They found that banks in general plan on spending more in 2009 than they will in 2008 on fraud detection and customer authentication. Larger banks, over $150 billion, plan to be ramping up security more than smaller banks. Twenty Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-25234408824424049162008-07-30T15:35:00.000-07:002008-07-30T16:06:45.600-07:00Delayed Draining with the DebitOver the July 4th weekend at least 75 depositors at Pierce County Citizens' Bank (Washington) found their accounts drained. It isn't unusual that this happened over a three-day weekend. The thieves know that a bank's response time is delayed when communication with staff is more difficult. What is unusual here is that the police have identified how the debit card Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6302246.post-27421628050103059922008-06-27T18:38:00.000-07:002008-06-27T18:45:11.736-07:00Two Years for Nigerian ScamIn Tacoma, WA, Edna Fiedler of Olympia plead guilty to her involvement in a Nigerian check scam and was sentenced to two years in prison. She'll also have five years probation for bank, wire and mail fraud associated with this. Fiedler received bogus checks and money orders from an internet contact in Lagos, Nigeria. She was told how to complete them where to deliver Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13811266155500285275noreply@blogger.com0