Feds foil skimmers and more than $400 million in potential card fraud

The United States Secret Service, working alongside other federal agencies as well as state and local law enforcement, last year conducted 22 investigations into EBT fraud and ATM skimming, preventing estimated potential losses of more than $428.1 million.

Agents from the Secret Service criminal investigative division and their law enforcement partners visited more than 9,000 businesses in 17 cities inspecting nearly 60,000 POS terminals, gas pumps and ATMs and removing 411 skimming devices in 2025. The criminal investigative division is charged with investigating financial crimes like card and check fraud, as well as cyber-enabled financial crimes.

The investigations were conducted in Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Anchorage; Boston; Orlando, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; Buffalo; San Diego, Calif.; New York City; San Antonio; Baltimore; Tampa, Fla.; Atlanta; Savannah, Ga.; Memphis; Miami; and Pittsburgh. In some cities, multiple investigations were conducted, the Treasury Department agency said in a press release.

A proactive approach

"The U.S. Secret Service is committed to combatting EBT fraud and credit card skimming throughout the country. These proactive operations are aimed at finding and removing devices before criminals can recover the stolen card numbers they contain," said Kyo Dolan, assistant director for the Secret Service's office of field operations.

"These operations," Dolan continued, "are only the start. We are working closely with our local, state, federal and international law enforcement partners to investigate and dismantle the criminal organizations that perpetrate these crimes."

Law enforcement agencies have seen a nationwide increase in card skimming, particularly targeting EBT cards. EBT cards are considered especially vulnerable to skimmers because the cards tend to lack modern security features, like microchips, relying instead on magnetic stripes.

Criminals install card skimming devices at ATMs and POS devices to capture EBT or other mag stripe card information and encode that data onto counterfeit mag stripe cards in order to make fraudulent purchases. Some crooks also target gas pumps that lack chip reading technology

The skimmed information can also be sold on the dark web. The criminals time their fraudulent withdrawals purchases using stolen EBT card numbers for the days benefits are distributed.

Shop owners in distress

The Secret Service estimates that skimming costs financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion annually. Secret Service Financial Analyst Vincent Porter, who participated in most of the skimming investigations last year, said in a statement that he and other agents heard story after story from store owners and mangers who unknowingly were operating compromised POS terminals.

"During the Boston operation we did, we had a bakery owner who was visibly upset that we found a skimming device in his store. He was literally starting to cry," Porter said. "It wasn't so much that the device was there, it was also that it was victimizing his customers."

"It has happened multiple times when a manager tells us they have checked their store," added Michael Peck, assistant agent in charge in the criminal investigative division. "We ask if we can check. They give us the go-ahead, and we spot a skimmer right away, One manager fell on the floor. He was crushed."

Porter said he also has been approached by many victims of skimming who had lost their government benefits.

"When you think of an individual recipient getting $300 to $1,200 per month in food benefits, and you divide that into the $428.1 in potential losses, you are talking about hundreds of thousands of people that would not have been getting their benefits," Peck said referring to the thefts by card skimming that were prevented last year.

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