Bulgarian Linked in US to 'Skim' Had 46 USD 20 Bills

Bulgarian national Mihail Vasilev appears in court Tuesday. Photo by Chronicle-Telegram

A Bulgarian national suspected of attaching a card-reading device to a North Ridgeville ATM last month had USD 920 in USD 20 bills concealed in a pair of gloves that police found during a search of his car, local media reported.

Mihail Vasilev also had made more than one transfer of slightly less than USD 10,000 — just below the limit of wire transfers that must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service — to Bulgaria from his Charter One Bank account, the unsealed search warrant said, as cited by the online edition of Chronicle-Telegram.

Vasilev waived a preliminary hearing Tuesday during a brief appearance in Elyria Municipal Court as part of a deal in which prosecutors didn’t object to him obtaining a bond. Elyria Municipal Court Judge Gary Bennett set bond at USD 10,000, but Vasilev will remain in custody while the U.S. Border Patrol investigates his immigration status.

North Ridgeville police arrested the 25-year-old Vasilev on May 30 after two Charter One employees discovered the card-reading device, commonly known as a “skimmer,” attached to the ATM outside the bank’s Lorain Road branch.

The employees contacted bank security after finding the skimmer and the security officers told police to search nearby for someone with a laptop computer.

Vasilev was found in a nearby parking lot eating ice cream in a parked 1994 Honda Accord, the warrant said. When police approached Vasilev, he reached behind him to the back seat, where an officer spotted a laptop computer.

Vasilev told the officer that he was waiting for a friend but couldn’t give the friend’s name or where he was. He also thought he was in Michigan, the warrant said.

Vasilev, who has been charged with possession of criminal tools, denied having anything to do with the skimmer or a small camera that was concealed on the ATM above the keypad where customers entered their PIN numbers.

North Ridgeville police Lt. Marti Garrow said last week that the card skimmer operated by copying the information from bank cards being inserted into the ATM, which continued to dispense cash normally. With the information copied by the skimmer and the PIN numbers from the hidden camera, Vasilev and his accomplices could clone the ATM cards and withdraw cash, he said.

The warrant said that Vasilev is in the United States illegally, but his attorney, Kenneth Lieux, said his client is here on a student visa.

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