East European crime gangs were sending university educated fraudsters, including Bulgarians, to Ireland to run bank card scams which could net 13 million euro a year, Irish newspaper Irish Independent said on October 16.

The gangs, mostly from Russia and Bulgaria, according to the newspaper, have allegedly stolen three million euro from Irish ATMs so far in 2007, while internet and mail-order fraud was up 40 per cent.

Gangs were able to get card details by persuading corrupt staff at restaurants and shops to swipe customers' credit and debit cards through a reader no bigger than a packet of chewing gum, the Independent said.

Such a device could store the details of 15 000 cards, and could be fitted onto ATMs alongside hidden cameras to record customers as they enter their personal identity number (PIN).

Una Dillon from the Irish Payment Services Organisation, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the gangs and the banking industry were in a constant battle to stay one step ahead of each other.

"The gangs cherry-pick people from the street and put them through three or four years at technical college so when they come out they know how bank systems work," Dillon told an anti-fraud seminar in Cork.

"They're quite focused when they come here: they're well dressed and don't look like the typical run-of-the-mill criminals and are quite focused when it comes to card-skimming. These gangs travel all over Europe and if they're stopped in their tracks in one particular country then they just move to another country, so it's hard to get rid of them altogether."