TWO Eastern European fraudsters have been jailed after they admitted trying to scam money from cash point machine users in Suffolk.Vadaes Pivoris, 27, and Vvladimiras Borzas, 25, appeared at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday charged with going equipped for theft.

TWO Eastern European fraudsters have been jailed after they admitted trying to scam money from cash point machine users in Suffolk.

Vadaes Pivoris, 27, and Vvladimiras Borzas, 25, appeared at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday charged with going equipped for theft.

The pair, who are originally from Estonia and whose current address was given by the court as Overton Drive, Romford, pleaded guilty to the offence before magistrates in Bury St Edmunds on July 22.

They were accused of attaching a 'skimming' device and camera to an ATM cash point machine outside a Tesco store in west Suffolk on July 6.

Michael Crimp, prosecuting, told the court how the false front would be strapped to a cash point machine, fooling unsuspecting users into thinking it was the real thing.

He said the 'skimmer' would then be used to read information from the magnetic strip of the card and a camera would then record the user typing in their pin number.

The information could then be transferred onto blank cards for the defendant's use.

He added: “This effectively creates a clone of the original card which the offenders can use. There were around 20 entries into the machine that day but I do not know how much money was actually obtained.”

Mr Crimp said the defendants were spotted acting suspiciously huddled around the cash point machine outside the superstore.

He said: “A female witness grew suspicious when she saw the men gathered around the ATM machine. She then saw them walk away carrying a silver box and get into a car driven by a third man.

“Luckily she took the registration number and reported it to the police and the defendants were picked up on the A14 towards Cambridge.”

Mitigating solicitors, Stephen Requena, for Borzas, and Oliver Goldman, for Pivoris, said both their clients, who have only been in the UK a matter of months, showed remorse and were compliant on arrest.

They said a third man, who was not named by the court, was the main force behind the fraud and that Borzas and Pivoris had a subordinate role.

However recorder David Anderson said he had no choice but to pass a custodial sentence.

“The obtaining of bank details through cash machine fraud is an offence that we take very seriously,” he said. “I accept that where you are both concerned you had a subordinate role and that from your point of view it was not entirely premeditated but this can be of no excuse.”

The pair were jailed for five months and also ordered to pay court costs of £150.