According to the Japanese publication The Mainichi, on Sunday it became known that more than 1.4 billion yen ($12.7 million) were stolen from 1,400 ATMs located throughout Japan in May. The operation was completed in just two hours.
So far, the main version of law enforcement agencies is the use by criminals of fake bank cards created on the basis of information leaked from a South African bank. Police intend to work with South African authorities through Interpol to establish how this information was stolen.
Police believe more than 100 criminals coordinated their efforts to withdraw money from ATMs located in convenience stores in Tokyo and 16 prefectures across the country. In total, more than 14,000 transactions were carried out, the maximum of which involved a withdrawal of 100,000 yen.
Seven Bank ATMs were attacked. To carry out the operation, the scammers made 1,600 plastic cards.
Unfortunately, the cash theft situation in Japan is only likely to get worse. In the wake of the ongoing stagnation of the economy, which is not helped even by the government buying back shares of commercial companies, the government introduced negative interest rates on bank deposits , in the hope of somehow forcing the population to invest money in the economy. The result has only been an increase in sales of home safes - people now prefer to keep their money at home.
