A Myanmar domestic helper was arrested last week for stealing an ATM card and withdrawing cash from the holder’s account by correctly guessing her extremely simple password “123456”, Public Security Police (PSP) spokeswoman Lai In Hong said at a press conference yesterday.
The 33-year-old suspect is a non-resident worker surnamed Su.
According to Lai, an Indian female non-resident worker reported to the Public Security Police last Tuesday that she lost her ATM card last Sunday and discovered that 8,500 patacas had been withdrawn by someone from her account later that day. She told the police that she had gone to the bank’s ATM to check her bank balance on Sunday and when she went to the ATM on Monday to withdraw money, she could not find her card. She went to the bank on Tuesday to check her account balance and discovered that someone had withdrawn 8,500 patacas from her account so she reported the case to the police.
Lai said that PSP officers scrutinised the CCTV footage of the bank’s area in the city centre and discovered that the victim had left her ATM card in the machine on Sunday, and after about three minutes, a woman appeared at the machine and took the card. The woman inserted the card into the ATM and tried to input different passwords four times but failed. She then returned to the machine after about five minutes and input a password that provided access to the account. After checking the victim’s account balance, she withdrew 8,500 patacas which was almost all the money the victim had in the account. The suspect then threw away the card in the bank’s rubbish bin and left.
According to Lai, PSP officers arrested Su at her workplace in the city centre. She admitted to stealing the card and trying to input different passwords four times. She succeeded when inputting 123456 as the password on her fifth attempt, and promptly withdrew the money. She told the police that she spent all the money on her daily expenses.
Su has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing a theft-by-finding charge, according to Lai.
Lai urged the public not to use simple password such as 123456 or 888888.
This undated handout photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday shows PSP officers escorting the Myanmar theft suspect to a police station.
