A PLASTERER has been found guilty of bank card skimming at a cash machine in Beccles.

Mihail Tache was arrested by police after his DNA was found on a battery attached to a camera which had been placed behind a speaker grille on a cash machine outside the Rainbow Store in Gosford Road.

Samantha Leigh, prosecuting, said an engineer was called to the cash machine in August 2009 after an alarm indicated the machine had been tampered with.

On inspection it was found that a 'skimming' device had been fitted and a camera attached.

Miss Leigh told Ipswich Crown Court yesterday that the skimming unit was used to record information from the magnetic strip on the bank card and the camera filmed the customer entering a PIN number.

Tache, 33, of Harrow, denied having an electronic camera and card reader for use in connection with fraud between July and August 2009.

He claimed he had travelled from London to Beccles to see a car that was for sale.

When he got to Suffolk he had phoned the owner of the vehicle but had got no answer and while he was waiting he had gone to the cashpoint.

He said that, while he was using the machine, the speaker grille had fallen off and he had put it back.

Sentence was adjourned until next month for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on him.