This archive report was first published on 26 November 2019.
Tanzanian Woman Arrested for Stealing ATM Cards from Elderly Clients ¶
On November 26, 2019, police in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, arrested a 23-year-old woman for stealing ATM cards from elderly clients.
According to the police, the woman, identified as Halima Juma, would pose as a client who offered to help people withdraw money from ATM machines. She would then exchange the ATM cards and hand over a different one that the client could not use.
Instead of helping the clients, Halima would later withdraw the money from a different ATM machine. The police recovered 23 stolen ATM cards from her private parts during a search at the police station.
The ATM cards belonged to nine different banks, including CRDB Bank, Equity Bank, Diamond Trust Bank, and others. The police chief, Lazaro Mambosasa, said Halima confessed to being part of an ATM card theft syndicate that targeted elderly rich-but-illiterate men and women.
Halima told the police that she and her accomplices would ask the users for their PIN numbers, and once they revealed the information, they would lie to them that the ATM card had been 'swallowed'. They would then go to another ATM machine and withdraw the money as the customer reported the matter to the bank.
The police have launched investigations into the matter to bring all culprits to book.
