
Largest Coordinated ATM Rip-off Ever Nets $9+ Million in 30 Minutes - tortilla
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/38366?ts0hb&story=ts_heary
======
tsetse-fly
I was a bit skeptical about how anyone could easily carry away that amount of
cash from an ATM, but it's not so unbelievable:

    
    
        $9,000,000 / 130 ATMS = $69,230.8 or roughly 692 $100 bills.
    
        The US government requirement for currency paper is: "the thickness of the paper shall be 124 micrometers [...]."[1]
    
        124 micrometers * 692 bills = 0.085808 meters or 3.38 inches thick. Not bad at all.
    

[1]
[https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=ccca3ea58d649385700a9f20c9...](https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=ccca3ea58d649385700a9f20c9cef421)

~~~
sounddust
ATMs in the USA almost never give out $100 bills (it's never personally
happened to me in my life). The highest I've seen is $20.

~~~
tsetse-fly
What's the largest amount you've withdrawn? It seems like if you withdrew your
daily limit (~$500+?), you'd get something larger than a $20.

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, I've done a LOT more than that, and it's still generally $20s, except
for certain ATMs in certain casinos. Even in casinos that have ATMs that hold
$100s, only a few certain ones generally do. The Wynn is the only casino I
know of where all of them have $100s.

And most non-casino ATMs have a per transaction limit of $600-$800,
independent of your card's limit. You can do multiple transactions, but you'll
get $20s every time. This too varies a bit in Vegas and AC, where you can find
much higher limits, but again only in the right ATMs in the right casinos.

Vegas casinos have a rule that they will only trade you up to $500 in $100s
for lower denominations per casino per day. It's to prevent laundering. The
Feds absolutely hate $100 bills because of that. If the FBI were able to get
rid of them, they would in a heart beat.

Since I made most of my money playing online poker and withdrew it that way, I
would often spend hours each day walking up and down the strip cashing $20s in
for $100s.

I've never understood why $50s weren't used more. It seems like the optimal
bill. Spitting out $500 in them isn't objectionable, and I imagine a lot of
people withdraw $50 (or would if you made it a quick cash option).

~~~
psadauskas
A great many "pro" gamblers believe $50s to be bad luck. Try going to a craps
or blackjack table with some of the seasoned vets, and lay down a couple $50s.
Several of the other players will leave.

~~~
nandemo
If they believe that then they aren't really pros, are they?

~~~
psadauskas
Hence the qoutes in my post.

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bprater
The big question I have is this: how did they insure that cashers returned the
money to the core group?

If you walked out with a fistful of cash, what would motivate you to give most
(some?) of it back? The promise of more money in the future?

~~~
sounddust
There is an audio interview with one of these "cashiers" who explains it all
(you have to fast forward a bit):
<http://smallworldpodcast.com/mp3/smallworld051906.mp3>

It's fascinating. Basically, the cashiers are working on the honor system.
They get to keep a percentage (this guy gets 40%), and they send the rest to
the "boss" through e-gold. The percentage you get increases as you earn their
trust. I guess that this keeps most people honest, as they want to get a
higher percentage the next time.

~~~
tsetse-fly
That interview is from May 2006.[1] We don't know if it's one of _the_
cashiers and we don't know how this specific scheme played out.

Yes, you can often hire a cashier. Typically, this guy has some plastic and an
encoder, but he doesn't have a steady supply of data to encode the cards. He's
working with you because you have data to cards with a high limit and you can
verify that they're valid. Most of the time, he's not even on the street.
He'll encode them in the car and have someone else run up to the ATMs.

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20061115154615/http://smallworldp...](http://web.archive.org/web/20061115154615/http://smallworldpodcast.com/?p=391)

~~~
sounddust
Yes, I wasn't trying to claim that it was one of the cashiers in this
particular scheme; I said "one of _these_ " rather than "one of _the_."
However, given the content of the interview and how similarly the aspects of
this particular scam match up with the cashier's description, it seems likely
that this scam was pulled off in a similar manner.

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mark_h
Wow.. that sounds seriously impressive.

Single-page print version: <http://www.networkworld.com/community/print/38366>

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mark_h
Given their tight time-window they probably couldn't hang around until the ATM
was free. I wonder how many people got to stand in line behind someone who was
repeatedly withdrawing large amounts of cash?

(I suppose it was probably done at night when things were quiet; makes you
think what _you_ would have done though!)

------
alexandros
It seems lax transactional guarantees bit banks in the rear. I am not sure how
difficult it would be to avoid parallel use of cards at different ATMs
(especially given the inter-bank nature of ATMs), but it was not done, and
this weakness was taken advantage of.

~~~
tlb
The latency to query a central database should be under 100 mS from anywhere
in the country. There's no reason it couldn't be done properly today. But ATM
systems were architected in the late 70s and they depend on a network of
regional data centers that reconcile nightly.

