Cyber thieves cashed in on $45 million from two Middle Eastern banks in a matter of hours in what’s being billed as one of the biggest heists to hit financial facilities in history.
Seven have been arrested. Prosecutors said Thursday the hackers broke into the banks’ credit-card processing firms to withdraw money from ATMs in 27 countries, Reuters reported. Investigators say an eighth suspect, the reported leader of the cyber cell, was murdered on April 27 in the Dominican Republic.
“In the place of guns and masks, this cyber crime organization used laptops and the Internet,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch said in the Reuters report. “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 credit-card processing companies that were hacked were located in India and in the United States, prosecutors told Reuters.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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