September 25, 2010, Saturday

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=120478

Two Bulgarian men have been sentenced for ATM skimming in Perth, Western Australia.

The two Bulgarians named Boyanov and Tomov, both aged 42, used forged Czech passports. They were arrested in March 2010.

The two men skimmed credit card data from ATMs in Scarborough, and before that exchanged forged euro banknotes in Darwin in the Northern Territorry.

The men were charged with several offences including using false passports, possessing skimming devices and money laundering, and received four years and nine months in jail.

District Court Judge Philip McCann told Australia's ABC TV "the men were working for an organized and highly dangerous international crime figure."

In sentencing, he took into account the need to deter international gangs from committing such offences, but also that the men did not have criminal histories.

The judge is also said to have taken into consideration the fact that the two men were struggling financial, and sent remittances to their families home in Bulgaria.