Media for [telecom] In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme

[telecom] In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme

In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme

By MARC SANTORA May 9, 2013

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.

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***** Moderator's Note *****

This is sloppy reportage: the story infers that the ATM network was somehow compromised, and that's not true. The thieves obtained - by means not yet clear - a database of debit card and PIN numbers. The rest was logistics and greed, but there was no evil computer genius "in the shadowy world of Internet hacking".

The New York Times, ISTM, has descended into the shadowy world of fear-based marketing. With the stroke of a few keys, this reporter is detroying a reputation that it took the paper a century to build.

Bill Horne Moderator