Cyber Crime Ring Steals $45 Million Across 27 Countries, Nabbing $40 million in Only 10 Hours

A global cyber hacking group has pulled off one of the biggest bank thefts in history, according to Reuters.

According to United States authorities, the group took $45 million dollars from two banks located in the Middle East—$40 million from the Bank of Muscat of Oman and $5 million from National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC (RAKBANK) of the United Arab Emirates.

The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday the hackers made 40,500 withdrawals from ATMs in 27 countries using two coordinated attacks.

“In the place of guns and masks, this cyber crime organization used laptops and the Internet," said Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. "Moving as swiftly as data over the Internet, the organization worked its way from the computer systems of international corporations to the streets of New York City."

The hackers attacked swiftly and efficiently. One of the attacks, which garnered $40 million from ATMs in 24 different courtiers, took only a little more than 10 hours.

According to prosecutors here’s how they did it:

· -The crime gang hacked into the computers of two credit card processors—one in December 2012 located in India and one in February located in the United States.

· -Then, they increased the limits for balances and withdrawals on prepaid MasterCard debit cards. These cards were issued by the Bank of Muscat and RAKBANK.

· -Next, the cards were given to “cashiers” who would head to ATMs around the world and withdraw large amounts of money since the original withdrawal and balance limits were no longer there to stop them.

In New York, crime cell members hit ATMs around the city on February 19, using the cards that had the same Bank of Muscat account number. Their comrades were doing the same in other nations. The New York portion of the operation took in $2.4 million using 2,904 withdrawals in ten hours—just a portion of the total $40 million taken from the Bank of Muscat of Oman.

Representatives for the banks were not accessible outside of normal business hours. Mastercard chose not to comment.

Law enforcement said seven of the eight members of the New York based cell have been taken into custody. The eighth—suspected to be a leader of the New York cell—was reportedly killed in the Dominican Republic on April 27.

The heads of the entire operation are thought to be outside of the U.S. but authorities did give more details since the investigation is on-going.