Federal prosecutors called it “the robbery of the 21st century.”
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced this week that a third person has pleaded guilty to participating in the largest cyber heist in history that netted $45 million in profits. Evan Jose Peña, 35, said he participated in the heist.
Peña joined his colleagues Emir Yasser Yeje and Elvis Rafael Rodriguez, both 24, in jail where they are being held pending trial.
All three defendants, “used stolen assets with the most sophisticated hacking techniques to withdraw millions of dollars in just hours in an unprecedented cyber heist,” said U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
On two separate dates – the first time on December 22, 2012, and then on February 19, 2013 – the aforementioned defendants collaborated and removed millions from ATM machines, according to federal prosecutors.
The hackers infiltrated the computer networks of two banks, the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC and Oman's Bank Muscat. They then altered the withdrawal limits on prepaid debit accounts. The hackers then sent the information to associates around the world who encoded the account details onto magnetic stripe cards.
Using these cards, the group was able to steal a large amount of money in a very short period of time.
The photo below, distributed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, shows Rodriguez and Yeje with stacks of money.
