Three men were arrested for ATM skimming in Hartford County following an investigation by the Statewide Organized Crime Investigative Task Force (SOCITF), authorities announced on Monday.
On December 18th, Liberty Bank alerted state police after multiple victims reported fraudulent charges on their debit cards. The bank identified a pattern of ATM skimming incidents across the state, including in Newington, Berlin, and West Hartford. Two specific victims had experienced multiple unauthorized transactions coming from the same location in Newington.
Using surveillance footage from financial institutions and third-party ATMs, detectives created a suspect profile and tracked a BMW X5 SUV with California registration plates. The vehicle was rented from Los Angeles International Airport and was overdue by nine days.
On December 20th, around 7:30 p.m., detectives located the vehicle at the valet entrance of a luxury apartment building in Hartford. Surveillance revealed the vehicle stopping at multiple ATMs, with unusually long stops at each location. A skimming device was seized from one of the ATMs.
At 9:04 p.m., the suspects were spotted at a bank in Wethersfield. As detectives approached, the vehicle was boxed in at the entrance. Two of the suspects, Tom Uzan (22) and Ioan Kanalos (23), were arrested without incident. The third suspect, Tsounis Panagiotis (26), fled on foot but was captured shortly after behind a strip mall.
During the arrests, authorities seized several items from the vehicle, including a keypad overlay device used to capture PIN codes, spare SD cards, and cards containing names of different individuals. Additional bank cards were found along the path Panagiotis took when he fled. These cards contained financial data consistent with stolen debit and credit card numbers.
All three men face multiple charges, including illegal use of a scanning device and fraudulent use of an ATM. They were held on a $500,000 bond and appeared in New Britain Superior Court on Monday morning.