A network of thieves swiped nearly $13 million from 1,400 Japanese ATMs in just two hours, investigators said.
The hackers used counterfeit credit cards for South Africa’s Standard Bank to pilfer the fortune through a series of thousands of withdrawals, since the money machines would only let them take about $900 at a time.
More than 100 burglars were in on the lightning-fast raid though Tokyo, the Kyodo news agency reported.
The team of thieves struck on the morning of May 15, investigators told local media. They used 1,600 fake credit cards to make about 14,000 withdrawals an ATM only allows users to take out 100,000 yen, or $912 at a time in about two hours, officials said.
In all, they took 1.4 billion yen, or $12.7 million, from the South African bank.
The Standard bank reported about $19 million missing after the fraud incident. It’s not clear what caused the $6 million discrepancy between South Africa’s figure and Japan’s reported number.
