Weekly News Roundup: November 1, 2013

Some news highlights from around the world this week including a massive international card fraud ring busted in Montreal, a Vancouver man sentenced to five years for skimming cards at more than 100 coffee shops, and an Omani bank reports that a data breach earlier this year impacted financial results:

The Montreal Gazette – Fraud Crackdown Across Montreal Region – Quebec police have arrested 16 people and carried out more than 20 search warrants in an operation to shut down an international debit card fraud scheme based in Montreal. The scheme bilked $12-million from more than 30,000 debit card users in Europe (mainly in France and Germany), Quebec provincial police said Tuesday morning. Police said the suspects would switch point-of-sale debit card terminals in European grocery stores for fraudulent ones using a duffel bag with a false bottom containing the tampered-with machines. Police called it “the most significant international debit-card fraud ring identified in Quebec until now.”

Vancouver Desi – Surrey man gets 5 years in U.S. prison for debit card fraud – A Surrey man will spend five years in a U.S. prison for his involvement in a debit-card skimming operation that targeted Vancouver coffee shops. According to court documents, Dennis Nguyen stole more than 2,600 bank-card numbers linked to about 100 different financial institutions by attaching skimming devices to point-of-sale machines in coffee shops such as Starbucks. Nguyen then manufactured debit cards using the stolen information.

Arabian Business – Bank Muscat posts $266m profit, despite cyber fraud exposure – Financial results from the Oman-based Bank Muscat are down 1.61 percent on last year, attributed to a card fraud incident reported to regulators earlier this year. In one of the biggest ever bank heists, a global cyber crime ring stole $45 million from RAKBANK and Bank Muscat by hacking into credit card processing firms and withdrawing money from ATM cash machines in 27 countries.