Four men from Quebec are facing charges related to an alleged scheme to use stolen information to fraudulently get cash from ATM’s in the Burlington area.
Mathieu Baaklini, 21, Safwan Bensalma, 21, Brandon Lo, 24, all of Laval, Quebec, and Nicolau Manfredi, 21, of Montreal, were arrested Monday and appeared in federal court in Burlington Tuesday, according to an announcement from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont’s office.
According to court records, the four men entered the United States from Canada several times beginning in March.
They allegedly used information stolen from Canadian cardholders to make several cash withdrawals, totaling thousands of dollars, from different ATMs in Chittenden and Franklin Counties.
Over the course of three days in August, about $54,000 in the form of 500 cash advances on Canadian and European cards was taken out from NPT Bank, according to ATM records and surveillance footage, the news release states.
When federal agents executed a warrant on a Williston storage unit last week, they found $33,000 in cash, a laptop, a card-reading device and 378 gift cards.
Handwritten numbers and letters on the gift cards led investigators to believe the cards had more fraudulent credit and debit card numbers on them.
The four were arrested Monday as they crossed through the port of entry at Highgate Springs. They face charges for conspiracy to use access devices fraudulently, through which they obtained more than $1,000.
If convicted, they could face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
