NIIGATA (TR) – Law enforcement on Monday made another arrest in the coordinated theft of nearly two billion yen from ATMs nationwide last month and obtained a handwritten information sheet that explains how to use forged credit cards to pull off the crimes, reports TV Asahi (June 7).
Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested Tomoyuki Izumi, 34, for allegedly using a forged credit card to withdraw 700,000 yen from convenience store ATMs in Tokyo’s Arakawa Ward.
Izumi is believed to have been a part of an international gang of thieves that used forged credit cards with data leaked from a bank in South Africa to steal approximately 1.86 billion yen in under three hours on May 15.
The gang targeted more than 1,400 ATMs in convenience stores in 17 administrative districts, including Tokyo and the prefectures of Kanagawa, Aichi, Osaka and Fukuoka.
An examination of security camera footage showed Izumi using a white card to to withdraw cash from an ATM. Police suspect that the card had a magnetic strip containing leaked data attached to it. The card has not yet been located.
During an investigation of a separate fraud case, Niigata Prefectural Police discovered an instruction sheet that is believed to have been used in the ATM crimes. A search of the residences of the suspects resulted in the discovery of the instruction sheet, which explains what to press on the ATM screen and the PIN code to enter.
In the fraud case, police arrested four men for defrauding an elderly woman in Shibata City, Niigata out of one million yen cash last month. Police believe that the suspects also participated in the theft of roughly 80 million yen from convenience store ATMs across Niigata during the coordinated strike on May 15.
Last week, police arrested two Japanese men, Tatsuo Nakazono and Katsuya Sahashi, both 28, for allegedly using fake credit cards to withdraw 1.2 million yen from ATM machines in Aichi.
The targeted financial institution in South Africa for the data leak was Standard Bank.
