Illie Gabriel Marian, the Romanian national who is the main suspect in the ATM skimming fraud that hit Kerala last week, had visited France, England, Italy, and Taiwan in the past. He had arrived in Thiruvananthapuram via Dubai in late June.
Investigators described the 29-year-old school dropout as a “threat to national security and banking safety.” The “illegal operations” of the criminal network he “worked for” spanned time zones. ATMs in other countries could also have been compromised. The Interpol has been alerted and “red corner” notices issued for four other suspects, all Romanians.
The son of a store owner at Crajov, Marian had often fallen foul with the law.
Marian had received rudimentary English education at a “police school” in Crajov.
He was at the lowest rung
Marian seemed to be at the lowest rung in the global criminal network’s hierarchy. He understood technology little.
He was more of a handyman who could be trusted to promptly fix concealed cameras and link Wi-Fi modems to ATM cables that connect the devices to their bank’s servers.
Tellingly, he pleaded ignorance about the router’s password. It was known only to an accomplice of his who is still at large. The accomplice seemed unfazed by Marian’s arrest and has continued to drain cash from compromised ATM accounts using counterfeited cards and furtively captured PIN information.
The real strategists behind the digital age crime remained unidentified. The cards were counterfeited in Mumbai with possible local help.
The police hoped they would be able to answer the wrenching question whether the bank’s servers were compromised soon. They were trying to break the Wi-Fi modem’s password to analyse the electronic traffic that passed through it. Investigators want to gauge the level of access the hackers had, if at all, into the bank’s digital repositories. The police will also investigate whether the bank’s network had succumbed to the suspected “packet theft cyber attack.”
S. Prakash, who is in charge of the nationalised bank’s ATMs, said it was unlikely that the attack had endangered its servers. A magistrate court here on Friday remanded Gabriel Marian to police custody till July 22.
