BOSTON - A Washington man was sentenced Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, in federal court in Springfield for his role in an ATM card skimming scheme.
Aaron Dario, 37, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni to 13 months in prison, five years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay restitution of $129,189 to TD Bank, N.A. On Aug. 30, 2017, Dario pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, attempted bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
From approximately February 2014 until his arrest on Sept. 21, 2014, Dario conspired with others to defraud, and did defraud, several banks through a multi-state ATM skimming scheme operated by a Romanian organized crime group in New York City. In this conspiracy, Dario and others first installed skimmer devices and pinhole cameras on the bank’s ATMs. The skimmer devices captured names and account numbers of hundreds of customers as they used their debit and other account cards to withdraw funds or engage in other transactions at the ATMs. The pinhole cameras recorded the personal identification numbers of the customers as they entered the information on the ATM keypads. Dario and others then removed the skimmer devices and pinhole cameras and used the account numbers and personal identification numbers to create fraudulent cards. The conspirators then used the fraudulent cards to withdraw money from the customers’ bank accounts, resulting in substantial losses to the financial institutions.
Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb; David L. Jaffe, Acting Chief of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Gang Section; Stephen A. Marks, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service, Boston Field Division; Matthew Etre, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; and East Longmeadow Police Chief Jeffrey Dalessio made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven H. Breslow of Weinreb’s Springfield Branch Office and Trial Attorney Marianne Shelvey of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Gang Section prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
