You mean, men robbed banks of $45 million, and not the other way around?
It was a brazen bank heist, but a 21st-century version in which the criminals never wore ski masks, threatened a teller or set foot in a vault.
In two precision operations that involved people in more than two dozen countries acting in close coordination and with surgical precision, thieves stole $45 million from thousands of A.T.M.’s in a matter of hours.
In New York City alone, the thieves responsible for A.T.M. withdrawals struck 2,904 machines over 10 hours starting on Feb. 19, withdrawing $2.4 million.
The operation included sophisticated computer experts operating in the shadowy world of Internet hacking, manipulating financial information with the stroke of a few keys, as well as common street criminals, who used that information to loot the automated teller machines.
The first to be caught was a street crew operating in New York, their pictures captured as, prosecutors said, they traveled the city withdrawing money and stuffing backpacks with cash.
Just $45 million? Amateurs! How much did the Wall Street crooks vacuum up?
These guys are kind of heroes in my book.
Further reporting indicates the companies taking the blame will be the middlemen handling the transfer info. However, the banks will get at least some reimbursement from their insurance companies.
It also appears it was foreign banks (ME Gulf state banks?) which had lax security for the debit cards used to make this “cash out” work.
Still, the hacking work was pretty amazing — and had been given a trial run earlier this year. They then tweaked things for the big heist in February.