Two Romanian men allegedly tampered with Australian ATMs to steal bank details before police seized a fake passport and almost $1 million in cash.
Gabriel Niculescu-Stoian, 48, and Alexandru Tulba, 41, faced court on Friday charged with dishonestly obtaining financial information and dealing with proceeds of crime.
The pair are accused of tampering with ATMs across Sydney and the NSW Illawarra region, installing "skimmers" to steal information from bank cards.
The information was then allegedly cloned to other cards to withdraw cash from victims' accounts.
Banks alerted federal police in April before the men were arrested at a Chatswood home in northern Sydney on Thursday.
"This scheme stole more than $800,000 from hard-working Australians and went straight into the pockets of criminals," Detective Superintendent Marie Andersson told reporters on Friday.
"Criminals are only motivated by greed and filling their pockets and will unashamedly use any tool to do this."
The skimmers were allegedly installed into the card slots of ATMs at Chatswood, Darlinghurst, Burwood and Haymarket, as well as further south at Warilla, Shellharbour, Fairy Meadow, Warrawong and Berkeley.
People who used ATMs in those suburbs have been advised to contact their bank and lock their accounts if they notice unauthorised transactions.
On top of the fraud and criminal proceeds charges, Tulba has been charged with possessing a false foreign travel document and giving false information to authorities.
The two men did not apply for bail at Hornsby Local Court and will face court again on July 23.
Police are investigating whether they are linked to an earlier scam in 2023 and whether they operated as part of a broader syndicate, Det Supt Andersson said.
