Cash and grab

HE married Dawn French in The Vicar of Dibley, faced terrors too numerous and deadly to mention in Spooks, played the dastardly Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood and is currently filming The Hobbit, in which he plays Thorin Oakenshield.

However, for now, Richard Armitage is spending his time narrating documentary series Fraud Squad.

Tonight, the spotlight is on fraud involving cash machines. Despite needing a card and a pin number to access an account, our money is – according to this programme – far from safe because determined thieves have developed sophisticated equipment that enables them to steal bank account details. These people will stop at nothing, even creating whole false ATM fascias.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Barnard, head of the Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit, says: “The criminals constantly try and evolve their technology to beat the technology the banks put in place. It’s a constant battle to try and work out where the criminal is going next.”

However, he’s sure of one thing. “The fact is that 92 per cent of all ATM fraud we see in this country is committed by Romanian nationals. Very, very tight communities, very tight gangs,” he says.

It’s a practice that needs to be nipped in the bud, although that proves easier said than done. Cameras follow officers as they raid a house in Essex that homes what the police describe as a “working ATM factory” that could help the gang behind it pocket £2m.

The people behind it? Again, Romanians.

But what could they possibly be doing with all that money?

Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Head, head of the Economic Crime Directorate for The City of London Police, said: “We can see quite clearly what they are doing with the money back in Romania.

They’re spending it on a lavish lifestyle – flash cars, flash houses.

“What sits behind it all is the greed, the greed of the people who are organising it, the greed of the professionals along the way who are enabling it and the greed of those people who are actually creating the technology to enable systems to be overcome; sheer criminal greed.”

There’s also a chance to hear about the “cash trap” scam that enables users to snatch money as it’s being dispensed.

Plus, there’s a look at how this criminal trade will buy and sell stolen British bank details and transfer them to counterfeit credit cards.

SCOTTISH wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan has attracted a firm following over the years, not least on Twitter, where more than 10,000 people are hooked on his every word.

When he’s not tweeting about picking up his new camera, watching the movie Drive, or working with polar bears for an upcoming series, he’s quite rightly been dropping heavy plugs for the two-part Land of the Lost Wolves. It’s bound to attract even more followers to his ever expanding social network.

Here, he documents the return of a wolf pack to the snowy peaks of Washington’s Cascade Mountains. The creatures were all but wiped out on the continent when European settlers arrived and killed an estimated million wolves.

They are the first specimens to return to the US north-west in seven decades.

With the animals making a comeback, clashes with the local communities are also likely.

The concluding part can be seen tomorrow.

THERE was a time when Friends repeats dominated E4, but these days a sitcom about a bunch of US science geeks and their beautiful neighbour living in an apartment block with a broken lift fills out the schedules. Namely, The Big Bang Theory.

Following a special show celebrating the 100th episode of the sitcom, the Big Bang Theory Night continues with this episode, in which Leonard and Penny attempt to give their relationship another chance. However, they soon begin to remember why it did not work out in the first place.

The cast includes Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco.

Stay tuned for another episode at 9pm, and then at 9.30pm, highlights show The Big Bang Theory: It All Started with a Bang, looks back on memorable moments from the first 100 episodes.