SEVEN BANK SCAM PERPETRATORS CAUGHT

Jakarta, Jan 22 (ANTARA) - A special team of the National Police Headquarters managed to arrest seven people for alleged bank scams.

According to BI, the central bank, the sum of missing savings at the banks has increased to Rp 5 billion from the Rp 4.1 billion initially estimated, with at least two more people reporting their cases to the police Thursday, following similar complaints filed in Denpasar.

The central bank has asked banks to reimburse consumers' savings after they verified the reported cases, the central bank said in a media statement Thursday.

Bank Indonesia added that the banks would have to change the consumers' ATM cards whose data had allegedly been stolen as well as educate consumers about security in using ATMs.

The arrests are being developed constantly, while ten (alleged perpetrators) had been caught in Jakarta and Kalimantan.

Thus, the police has arrested ten suspects involved in a syndicate stealing the savings of customers by way of ATMs in a number of place in Indonesia.

On Friday morning, the special police squad caught one person involved in the stealing of customers' savings from various ATMs.

Then the detectives of the West Kalimantan police caught two other suspects in Pontianak.

Shortly later, police investigators caught seven people engaged in bank scams in Jakarta and Kalimantan.

The police also seized Rp 23 million in cash, a computer and several kinds of ATM cards and code number detecting equipment.

Earlier, a number of national bank consumers, like those of Bank Mandiri, BII, BCA, BRI, BNI and Bank Permata, had reported to have lost some of their saving.