100 thieves stole $12.7 million from ATMs in 2.5 hours

In less than three hours, at least 100 people helped pull off a $12.7 million heist by using cloned credit cards at ATMs in Japan. While organized crime may not equally split the spoils, if 100 people participated in the heist, then each of those people potentially made $127,000 for less than three hours of work. That’s a pretty slick trick.

The gang of thieves used the fake credit cards at 1,400 machines, according to a report in The Mainichi; each person withdrew the maximum amount of 100,000 yen, which is roughly $913, and repeated the process in each of the “14,000 transactions” that used more than 1,600 credit cards issued by a South African bank. The BCC reported the crooks “targeted 7-Eleven cash machines” since those ATMs accept foreign cards and most others don’t in Japan.

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