Japan: 100 thieves steal $13 million from ATMs within three hours

In a shocking heist, more 1.4bn yen (US$12.7 million) was stolen from ATMs in Japan within three hours on the same day. Members of an international crime syndicate are suspected of committing the crime, which reportedly involved 100 people.

The police believe the forged credit cards contained details of accounts that had been illegally obtained from a bank in South Africa, reported The Guardian. Japanese police via Interpol, have asked authorities of the South African ban to investigate how the thieves got hold of such extensive credit card information. 

According to Kyodo News, the thieves targeted ATMs in Tokyo and 16 other districts to carry out the robbery. Information received from the transactions suggest that the criminals used data from about 1,600 credit card accounts that had been issued by the South African bank. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported, the coordinated transactions began a little after 5 a.m. on Sunday and the last transaction happened around 8 am on the very same day, which was May 15.

It has been  speculated that the criminals might not be in Japan anymore, since they used cards of a different country to commit fraud in another, They might have made time to escape before the crime could have been discovered.