Six more
arrested in breathtaking $45M ATM theft
An iPhone photo allegedly taken by one defendant showed $800,000 packed
into a suitcase
Six more alleged
participants were arrested Monday in a $45 million global ATM fraud, including
one man who was photographed stuffing $800,000 into a suitcase, federal
prosecutors in New York said.
The defendants are alleged to be part of a New York cell that
used bogus payment cards to withdraw millions of dollars from more than 100
ATMs in a matter of hours, according to
the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Defendants
Anthony Diaz, 24; Saul Franjul, 23; Saul Genao, 24; Jaindhi Polanco, 29; and
Jose Angeley Valerio, 25, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit
access device fraud, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
They face a possible seven-and-a-half years in prison. A sixth defendant,
Franklyn Ferreira, was arrested later on Monday but had not been arraigned, the
spokesman said.
Hackers
raised the withdrawal limits on the cards after breaking into prepaid Visa and
MasterCard credit card processors in the U.S. and India, which handled
transactions for the Bank of Muscat, based in Oman, and the National Bank of
Ras Al-Khaimah PSC, also known as RAKBANK, in United Arab Emirates.
The
style of attack is known as an "unlimited operation," prosecutors
said. Neither of the prepaid debit card processors has been identified.
The Bank of Muscat lost $40 million in February when criminals
made withdrawals, prosecutors said in May when they announced the
first indictment.
Franjul
is alleged to have packed $800,0000 cash in a suitcase and given it to
co-conspirators who then boarded a bus for Florida. The cash was to be
delivered to Alberto Yusi Lajud-PeA+-a, one of eight people indicted in May,
but who was subsequently found to have been murdered in April in the Dominican
Republic.
The
attorney's office released an iPhone photo taken by a co-conspirator that
allegedly shows Franjul handling the cash. The New York cell spent proceeds
from the heists at high-priced nightclubs and on luxury cars and watches,
prosecutors allege.
Two
other photos provided by the attorney's office showed a Facebook post with
expensive bottles of alcohol and a receipt for more than $4,000 worth of booze
purchased at a New York lounge.
RAKBANK
was hit with $5 million in losses after 4,500 ATM withdrawals were made in 20
countries on Dec. 22, 2012. A second large attack between Feb. 19 and 20 saw
the Bank of Muscat lose $40 million, withdrawn by people in 20 countries in
just 10 hours.
The
New York cell is alleged to have withdrawn $2.8 million of RAKBANK's money in
thousands of transactions from 140 ATMs around New York, sending the bulk of it
to organizers of the attacks.
Of
the eight people indicted in May, four have pleaded guilty to charges related
to the thefts, and three others remain charged under a superseding indictment
released Monday, prosecutors said.
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