In movies bank heists are depicted as action-packed situations where robbers armed with automatic weapons overpower security, grabbing as much cash as they can before escaping in dramatic fashion.
In reality, however, criminals move much more discretely, can strike at any time and if you're not vigilant you may not even realise they made off with your money.
Last year the police received over 500 reports of bank card skimming in TT.
As of October 19, 2021, the Fraud Squad received over 200 reports of card skimming.
Card skimming is a practice where the personal data from a person's bank card is recorded when used at an ABM or point of sale machine and subsequently replicated onto a blank card.
This blank card can be used to access funds from the person's account to buy items at the person's expense.
Given the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and the need to reduce person-to-person contact in stores, it was believed that incidents of skimming would increase during the lockdown period thought online fraud.
In a June 2021 article from the Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica's director of the Regional Security System (RSS), captain Errington Shurland said cybercrime and cybercriminal activity have taken off since the pandemic and described the prevalence of online scams as "the modus operandi of future criminal activity."
But local police from the Fraud Squad says there has been a slight decrease in cases since the public health restrictions came into effect last year.
Despite this decline, police and banks stress that bank card skimming and other types of fraud are still a major concern and called on banks and the government to focus on the issue of cyber-security as TT pushes towards digitisation.
A Fraud Squad officer, who asked not to be named, told Sunday Newsday that while digital threats were still in their infancy in TT, some criminals specialising in online fraud like data phishing and skimmers have established a foothold in the country with networks in operation.
He said based on intelligence, most of the skimming networks comprised of foreigners, usually Venezuelans, who have access to specialised equipment.
The skimming equipment usually has three components– the skimming device which records the information from a bank card, the re-printer, which copies the information onto a blank card for later use and the blank cards themselves.
He said once skimmers have successfully recorded and produced a "dummy" or replica of a victim's card, they usually take cash within the first 24 hours before the person can realise what has happened.
"Most accounts have a limit of $5,000 at a point of sale machine in a store and a $3,000 limit on cash withdrawal at an ATM, so they may go to a liquor mart and spend $5,000 on alcohol, then they go to the ATM and withdraw $3,000.
"As soon as the clock strikes midnight, the bank account resets and they go and withdraw another $3,000 in cash and then later that day when a liquor mart opens they take out another $5,000 in alcohol. That's a total of $10,000 in
