A look at the growing crime of
cash machine fraud involving card-skimming devices:
Since it began five years ago, cash machine fraud has swiftly increased in sophistication, staying one step ahead of the banks' attempts to control it. In a recent case in Whitley Bay, Tyneside, fraudsters jammed other cash machines in the area so that customers were forced to use a cloned Nationwide machine.
The criminal gangs behind such a sophisticated scam sometimes make elementary mistakes. Police in Southend are searching for three men and a woman of "Eastern European" appearance who forgot to wipe the digital memory card before putting it in a camera inside a fake fascia.
The pictures showed them posing with waxworks at Madame Tussauds. A spokesman for Essex Police said: "We don't know who these people are but we have ruled out Gary Lineker, John Travolta and Nicolas Cage from our inquiries."