Sophisticated criminals are attaching spy cameras on banks’ automated teller machines (ATMs) in Uganda putting millions of customers at risk of losing their money and lives, Saturday Monitor has established.
The fraudsters use cameras to capture customers’ debit and credit card security numbers known as personal identification numbers (PINs) while transacting at the electronic cash dispensers. The criminals also attach skimmers on the cash dispensers to help them capture and clone the ATM cards. Once the customer leaves the ATM point, the criminals come in to transact on the customers behalf. 
Customers of Stanbic Bank Uganda are the latest victims of one in many dirty tricks used by cybercriminals to falsely obtain money from bank customers’ accounts. Sources within the banking industry told Saturday Monitor that the fraudsters placed one camera at Stanbic’s IPS branch ATM and a second at its down town Kampala location. The cameras and skimmers have since been removed after the bank discovered them.
Mr Daniel Nsibambi, Stanbic Bank’s spokesperson said they are not in position to comment on the ATM incidents. “For security reasons, we are unwilling to discuss specifics of the case,” Mr Nsibambi said in an interview this week. “The bank provides high-level security for customer funds through various internal systems and risk control measures. We encourage our customers to ensure that their Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) are confidential and to frequently change them.”
Mr Ibin Ssenkumbi, the spokesman of Kampala Metropolitan Police, confirmed that Stanbic incidents have been under investigation. “We have ever handled such a case. I don’t have the information at my fingertips but I have heard about it from the CID officials who were investigating it,” he said in an interview this week.
Inside job?
Mr Ssenkumba added that bank fraud in the country is on the increase and cases that have been reported are two fold, including ATM and over the counter fraud. “For ATMs, we are not getting many cases but this case of people losing money on their accounts is increasing. Some two people were arrested in June and taken to court,” he said without giving specifics.
However, police suspect criminals are being facilitated by bank employees. “Sometimes, the bank staff have had a hand in facilitating these fraudsters for example withdrawing money across the counter requires a lot of paper work but you find that people are gaining access to other people’s money,” said Mr Ssenkumbi.
Both top and lower tier of the 23 commercial banks in the market have been affected by the economic crimes. Bank staff are also said to be helping criminals to borrow money on behalf of company employees, who end up financing loans they have not borrowed.
The Police were unable to provide up-to-date statistics on national bank fraud cases because of its manual system of recording cases around the country. However, police files access by Saturday Monitor at Jinja Road Police Station revealed that between January to June this year, up to 413 economic crimes were recorded, including bank frauds, issuing of false cheques and obtaining money by false pretence. Up to 67 of these were bank-related crimes.
To combat the increasing fraud, banks such as Standard Chartered, Stanbic and Barclays have invested in both information and mechanical security. “We have delivered classroom training to our security guards to identify and escalate any incidents of installation skimming gadgets at our ATMs as card skimming is a threat in the industry,” Ms Eva Kentaro, the head of financial crime risk, at Standard Chartered Bank, said on Thursday.
“The anti-fraud systems are in existence but does the account holder know what is expected of them? That is where the trouble starts,” Ms Mugerwa said. But even if customers keep their PIN secret, it could still be captured by card skimmers or account details could be given away by bank staff, which returns the onus on the financial institutions.