3D Printers Among Equipment Seized from Bulgarian Organized Crime Network

3D printing represents a brighter future for the overwhelming majority of people, but there are always a few that can find nefarious uses for any tool. Criminals have begun to find ways to use additive manufacturing (AM) to assist them in their schemes. The first uses were fairly simple, such as 3D printing a bump key (essentially a way to pick locks by force), but criminals have since found more sophisticated ways to leverage the technology.

Europol, in joint operations with Bulgarian and Spanish law enforcement officials, arrested 31 members of a Bulgarian organized crime network. When you hear the words, “organized crime” it’s tempting to think of hopped up street thugs, but the Bulgarian network was high-tech operation. Europol suspects the network of being involved in a number of crimes, including large-scale ATM skimming, electronic payment fraud, and forgery of documents.

Europol’s Operation Imperium resulted in 31 arrests for high tech crimes. Courtesy of Europol.

Police raided eight different criminal labs in Spain and Bulgaria, finding advanced equipment, including 3D printers, for skimming and counterfeiting. ATM skimming requires thieves to alter actual ATMs to steal the account numbers of users that insert their cards.

The organized crime network used 3D printers to build bezels that overlapped actual ATM card slots to steal information. Along with the fake bezels, Europol officials found dozens of forged credit cards, accompanied by PIN numbers, ready to be used at other ATMs.

“We’ve hit another international organised payment crime network, which sends a strong signal to cybercriminal groups active in this field,” said Troels Oerting, head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre. “This is a great example of effective joint efforts between EU Member States and EC3 to protect customers and their electronic transactions across the European Union.”

It might be interesting to hear the methods used by the criminals to produce CAD designs that fit into ATM bezels well enough that most people wouldn’t notice. The next time Europol busts a ring like this one, it wouldn’t be surprising if they found 3D scanners along with AM systems. Below you’ll find a video about a similar case in Australia.

Source: Europol