Men Admit to Placing Skimmers on ATMs in Ada County

BOISE, Idaho (KLIX)-Two men could face up to two years in prison for aggravated identity theft for placing electronic devices that steal transaction card information on ATM machines in Ada County. According to Acting U.S. District Attorney Rafael Gonzalez, Jr. Atilla Ferenc Orban, 37, and Hakim Slaft Hannaoui, 33, pleaded guilty to the charges after being indicted by a grand jury in March earlier this year.

The two men admitted that they conspired to commit access device fraud by placing "skimmers" on public ATMs. The devices take the information from the magnetic strips on payment cards that are inserted into the ATMs. The two men then used the information to encode new blank payment cards that they then sued to steal money and buy goods.

Orban and Hannaoui are set to be sentenced later in November by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise. The two face a minimum of two years each behind federal prison bars and a maximum fine of $250,000, plus a year of supervised release. Several agencies were involved in the investigation, including the U.S. Secret Service, Idaho State Police, police departments in Boise, Caldwell and Nampa, as well as the Ada County Sheriff's Office.