THREE Romanian nationals, who are suspected of being Automated Teller Machine (ATM) skimmers, were arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 yesterday morning.
Special Investigator Florante Gaoiran said that they traced the whereabouts of the foreigners through the footage provided by the bank.
"We traced their vehicle after it was captured by the bank's camera," he said.
Gaoiran identified one of the suspects as Ionup Alesandrou, while the names of the other two are yet to be released.
Armed with a search warrant issued by Regional Trial Court Judge Generosa Labra, agents entered the foreigners' room in a Barangay Lahug condominium around 5 p.m. to check for devices used to skim ATMs.
In a press release by the LandBank of the Philippines, the two foreigners were captured on the bank's surveillance cameras.
The NBI 7 initially invited two of the Romanians to its headquarters for questioning.
One of them drove a vehicle where two caps were found. These were the caps they allegedly wore while they skimmed the ATMs, based on the security footage.
The other foreigner, allegedly the IT expert among the group, was later taken into custody.
They allegedly copied and harvested information from LandBank of the Philippines' Mandaue branch, where security cameras captured their faces.
Traces of insertion were also found in the bank's Banilad branch.
Active and retired law enforcers and government fell prey to the skimming stint.
Landbank confirmed that 50 accounts were compromised, while 2,000 others were blocked as part of their security measure.
Cebu City Police Office Director Joel Doria said that they are having difficulty with the case because the bank refuses to release the security footage.
"We are struggling in this investigation because they refuse to cooperate with us," he said.
He called for local legislators to draft an ordinance that will force establishments with security cameras to release footages to police solely for investigation purposes.