Kirkland Man Sentenced to Five Years for Role in International Skimming Ring

A 35-year-old Kirkland resident was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle to five years in prison and five years of supervised release for his role in a "skimming" operation that fraudulently withdrew more than $276,000 from local bank accounts.

Dan Petri, a Romanian citizen who lived in Kirkland prior to his arrest, worked with an international crime group to install "skimming" devices on ATM machines that captured bank customers' account numbers and PINs. U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik called the organization an “international multi-million dollar crime ring” that specifically targeted Americans and American banks.

According to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Petri and his accomplices used the account numbers and PINs they obtained from skimming devices to create duplicate cards and withdraw large amounts from hundreds of customers' accounts. The criminals were able to withdraw more than $29,000 from customer accounts in a single day in November 2010, authorities said. 

Petri was arrested by Bothell Police after someone reported seeing him and his accomplice loitering near a Chase ATM.

The total loss attributed to this skimming ring is more than $276,838. Judge Lasnik also ordered Petri to pay back $247,783 in restitution.

This is just the latest of several skimming cases that have surfaced in the Puget Sound region in recent months. Two other Kirkland residents, including another Romanian national, and accused of stealing more than $1 million from bank customers.

In July, a Renton man was also for his role in a skimming scheme that targeted ATMs in Kirkland and elsewhere around the Puget Sound region.

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The Secret Service and U.S. Attorney's Office has offered the following tips on avoiding skimming machines:

• If the access door to a lobby ATM is broken, don’t use the ATM; go somewhere else.

• If there is more than one ATM, and a sign has been placed on one of the units saying it is out of service, go somewhere else. The sign could be an attempt to direct traffic to the machine where skimming equipment is installed.

• Check the machine before putting your card in—is the card slot securely in the machine? Has anything been installed around the edges of the machine that could conceal a camera? Is any glue or sticky substance around the key pad or card slot?

• Always attempt to cover your hand when you enter your PIN so that if there is a camera, the numbers cannot be captured.

• Watch your account activity and report any unauthorized credit or debit charges immediately.