North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria: International credit card theft group busted in North Macedonia

2026 marks the 25^th anniversary of the Convention on Cybercrime (also known as the Budapest Convention ).

H ere are 25 selected real cases and operations against cybercrime that speak for themselves on the usefulness and relevance of the Convention and its framework in the daily work of criminal justice authorities worldwide, working on fighting against cybercrime and protecting you and your rights in cyberspace.

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Back North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria: International credit card theft group busted in North Macedonia

The Macedonian police arrested five Macedonian and two Serbian members of an international credit card theft group, the police said. A Bulgarian national is also believed to be a member of the group which stole over MKD 4 million (USD 92,000) from Macedonian citizens between November 2011 and April 2012. In January the authorities suspected that an organised crime group was electronically stealing credit card information in Macedonia. Further investigation revealed that the suspects came from Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria, and the police forces of the three countries began a joint investigation. The group placed devices in ATMs in seven Macedonian cities, and stole information from 1,111 credit cards. Two Macedonian nationals took the collected data to Bulgaria, where a Bulgarian citizen is suspected of using it to create fake credit cards.

Based on data from banks, the Macedonian victims reported illegal transactions on their cards in far off countries such as Thailand and Uganda.

The arrests began on 17 April, when the police caught three suspects trying to install an information skimming device into an ATM machine in Prilep, southern Macedonia. The police found two more such devices in the suspects’ vehicle.

Six suspects were placed under arrest for one month and one suspect was placed under house arrest as the investigation continues. Three of the suspects have a previous record of credit card forgery.

This international credit card theft investigation relied on key Budapest Convention provisions, including those criminalising the misuse of devices (Article 6) for ATM skimming and computer-related fraud and forgery (Article 7 and 8). Procedural articles enabled the expedited preservation (Article 16/17/29), production (Article 18), and seizure (Article 19) of electronic and physical evidence, while international co-operation (Article 23) and mutual legal assistance (Article 25) provisions facilitated joint investigative actions across Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, resulting in the arrests and disruption of a cross-border criminal group.