Turkish Man Pleads Guilty in $55 Million Global ATM Heist Scheme
A Turkish man pled guilty Tuesday in a federal court in Brooklyn to planning and leading cyber-attacks that swiped $55 million from ATMs around the world.
Ercan Findikoglu, 34, pled guilty to five counts, including computer intrusion conspiracy and access device fraud conspiracy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York confirms. He could face up to 57 years in federal prison. He used stolen debit and prepaid card data to make fraudulent ATM withdrawals. In one attack in 2013, his criminal group needed less than 12 hours to steal some $40 million from ATMs located in two dozen countries.
Between 2010 and Findikoglu’s arrest in late 2013, he and his fellow criminals hacked into payment processing platforms in India to increase prepaid card balances so that those amounts could then be stolen from ATMs after the necessary data were sent to crews in the different countries.
It was unclear this afternoon what had become of his fellow hackers.
When news of the heist broke, experts blamed poor security for the success of the criminals.
Related stories:
