Algerian ATM 'Genius' Caged

A cash-point fraudster whose gang looted over half a million pounds from ATM's up and down the country - funding a luxury lifestyle of foreign trips and flash cars - was jailed for two years on Monday.

Algerian asylum-seeker Mehrez Berkane, 32, of Dunstan Lane, Edge Hill, Liverpool perfected a technique whereby cash was withdrawn without his string of bogus accounts being debited.

"What you were involved in was a new and sophisticated method of cheating banks out of money," Southwark Crown Court Judge Martin Beddoe told Berkane. "The fraud you were involved in was in excess of half a million pounds."

The defendant was successfully hunted down by the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit, which placed hidden cameras at key ATM's targeted by the gang and obtained his identity in a stop and search.

Berkane - an expert in Transaction Reversal Fraud - carried out at least 280 such thefts on thirty-two nights, netting £119,450 with illegally obtained pre-paid credit cards, which were then immediately destroyed.

Berkane pleaded guilty to stealing £112,570 from HSBC Bank between February 10 and November 20, 2008.

He also pleaded guilty to sixteen sample counts of stealing sums between £200 and £600 from HSBC branches in Liverpool; Stanmore, Midlesex; Golders Green, North London; Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire; Church End, Finchley, North London; Bushey and Oxey, Middlesex and from an RBS in Allerton, Liverpool.

Berkane further admitted falsely representing he was Eddy Benjami on February 11, 2008 and Adam Sami on February 20, 2008, when he used forged Belgian passports to obtain the pre-paid credit cards.

Prosecutor Mr. Martin Dunham told the court: "Those skilled in Transaction Reversal Fraud, a select few, have ways of removing cash from the machine without their account being debited by manipulation of the cash disposal slot."

An investigation was launched after the HSBC lost £557,540 between January 2007 and September 2009.

"Berkane was regularly seen using the cash-points when the cameras recorded a Transaction Reversal Fraud," explained Mr. Dunham.

The defendant - whose brother Lyes is on the run from police - obtained pre-paid credit cards at the CoOp and Money Shop in Old Swan, Liverpool and used cards fraudulently obtained by others.

Once identified as wanted Berkane was arrested in Bury Street, Liverpool on January 20, last year after police stopped his black Audi A5 and he was quizzed at St. Anne's Street Police Station, denying the frauds.

"There are no assets and the money has been spent," added Mr. Dunham.

First-time offender Berkane, the son of a Mayor, has been served with deportation papers, but will contest removal based on his marriage to his French wife - an EU citizen.

"This fraud involved the use of forged passports and other forged material to secure the pre-paid credit cards used and misused at the ATM's attacked with these cards," Judge Beddoe told Berkane.

"Some of the proceeds was used to indulge yourself in expensive foreign travel and to maintain a lifestyle to which you were not entitled."

Maxine Sharples, 23, of Local Centre, Palacefields, Runcorn, Cheshire, who had been living with her mother at Livermore Court, Liverpool 8 as a bail condition pleaded not guilty to entering into a money laundering arrangement between September 30, 2007 and October 30, 2008 in that she received £21,200 into her Nationwide Building Society account and paid £20,480 of it to Berkane.

She also denied transferring criminal property, namely £3,984, between December 4, 2008 and January 28, last year and her pleas were accepted by the prosecution and not guilty verdicts entered.