Florida Man Sentenced To Federal Prison For RI, MA ATM Thefts

PROVIDENCE, RI — A Florida man was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison after he admitted to stealing money from more than 100 ATMs in Rhode Island and Massachusetts last May. Dean Emmanuel Colin, 27, of Miami, was arrested outside a Santander Bank in Seekonk on May 23.

According to the Department of Justice, Colin used stolen identities and fake ATM cards to make the withdrawals over the course of two days, taking out large sums of cash. He was caught after bank security officers saw him making a withdrawal and notified the U.S. Secret Service. Seekonk police arrested him a little while later.

The Secret Service along with Warwick and Seekonk police determined that Colin and others took blank ATM cards and encoded them with PIN numbers and account details that were stolen during a data breach. The targeted accounts all had large or no limit to cash withdrawals from an ATM.

According to court documents, Colin rented a hotel room in Foxborough on May 22, then spent the next two day traversing the area, making the large withdrawals from ATMS around Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In all, he hit 173 ATMs for withdrawals totaling $289,530, and was successfully able to get money out of 112 machines for $174,660.

When he was arrested, Colin had nine ATM cards in his possession. Inside his car, police found more bank cards and his hotel room key card. In a search of his room, they also found the sweatshirt he could be seen wearing in several bank surveillance videos, two more bank cards and more than $65,000 in cash.

Officials were also able to seize a package Colin sent to his home in Miami from Warwick. In it, they found a cereal box with plastic bags of cash inside, $48,500, labelled with the names of the people he was working with.

On Sept. 11, Colin pleaded guilty to bank fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. Restitution will be determined by the court at a later time.