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Prosecutors request permission to detain 3 ATM heist suspects
2016/07/18 22:53:59
Taipei, July 18 (CNA) Taipei District prosecutors on Monday filed a motion with a local court to detain three East European suspects involved in an automatic teller machine theft of more than NT$83 million (US$2.6 million).
After four hours of questioning, the prosecutors said they were seeking the detention of Latvian Andrejs Peregudovs on charges of fraud and offenses against computer security.
Two others arrested a day earlier -- Romanian Mihail Colibaba and Moldovan Niklae Penkov -- were also charged with fraud and offenses against computer security.
All three should be detained out of concern they will flee the country and collude in destroying evidence related to their roles in the international computer fraud ring, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office argued.
Taiwan police have retrieved NT$60 million in cash that was dispensed with the help of malware from 51 ATMs at different branches of First Bank on July 9 and 10, with the remaining NT$20 million yet to be located.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has lauded the police for cracking the 16-member ring in just over a week, saying it was the police's hard work rather than luck that led to the achievement.
Police officer honored for breakthrough arrest in ATM heist
2016/07/18 16:32:57
Premier Lin Chuan (left) and police officer Sung Chun-liang.
Taipei, July 18 (CNA) A police officer was honored Monday for spotting a key suspect later arrested for a recent bank theft of over NT$83 million (US$2.60 million), when he was off duty on a family trip a day earlier.
Sung Chun-liang (宋俊良), an officer at the Taipei City Police Department's Public Relations Office, received the honor along with his colleagues from Yilan County, who made the arrest, at the National Police Agency from Premier Lin Chuan (林全).
Sung alerted the Dong'ao police station in Yilan after he noticed a foreign national that fit the description of Andrejs Peregudovs in a restaurant across the road, where the officer was having a meal with his family Sunday.
Peregudovs, a Latvian national, was suspected of being one of the 10 plus members of a criminal ring that allegedly took NT$83.27 million in cash from hacked automatic teller machines (ATMs) at First Banks' branches in Greater Taipei and Taichung July 9 and 10.
"I was just lucky," said Sung, who took a break from his family trip in eastern Taiwan to attend the press event in Taipei.
Sung received NT$100,000 for the tipoff, while Dong'ao police station chief Chen Chih-ta (陳志達) and policeman Kuo Yung-cheng (郭勇承) shared NT$100,000 for the arrest of Peregudovs.
The premier called the arrest of Peregudovs in Yilan and two other suspects -- Romanian Colibaba Mihail and Moldovan Niklae Penkov -- in a hotel in Taipei, where around NT$60 million was seized, an encouraging development that demonstrated the professional skills of the police force.
Lin also said a report made to police about suspicious activities at one of the bank's branches in Taipei July 10 showed how members of the public can contribute to police investigations.
The report made to police about uncollected cash at a branch in Taipei allowed authorities to identify possible suspects through the bank's security video and trace their movements, including the departure of two Russian suspects from Taiwan on a flight to Hong Kong on the morning of July 11.
Investigators later found First Bank ATMs of a certain model were infected with malware that can make the machines dispense cash without the use of a bank card.
Civic-minded residents, ubiquitous cameras help crack ATM case
2016/07/18 21:40:58
CNA file photo
Taipei, July 18 (CNA) Taiwan's police credited two civic-minded citizens and a dense network of surveillance cameras as playing important roles in helping them crack an international ring involved in the first ATM heist in Taiwan.
On Sunday, police arrested three East Europeans -- Latvian Andrejs Peregudovs in Yilan County and Romanian Mihail Colibaba, and Moldovan Niklae Penkov in Taipei -- believed to be part of the criminal gang that stole NT$83.27 million from 51 hacked ATMs at First Bank branches in Taipei, New Taipei and Taichung on July 9 and 10.
Taiwan authorities have retrieved about NT$60 million of the stolen money, much of it found Sunday night in the hotel room where Colibaba and Penkov were staying.
Peregudovs had put the money in a locker at the Taipei railway station on July 13, and Colibaba and Penkov picked it up on July 17 after arriving in Taiwan a day earlier, according to police.
When questioned after his arrest, Peregudovs said he had been instructed by his superior to put the other NT$20 million in a location in the mountainous part of Neihu to be taken away by others. The money was in fact picked up and police has yet to locate it.
Law enforcement authorities were clearly proud of cracking the case, with one officer saying that the "international ring has underestimated Taiwanese police."
He boasted that hackers have stolen over NT$30 billion from ATMs around the world, but police in Taiwan were able to crack the case and retrieve most of the money in just one week.
It was actually a sharp-eyed off-duty policeman who made one of the biggest contributions by recognizing Peregudovs while sitting near him at a restaurant in Yilan and then alerting police at a nearby precinct to arrest him.
Police acknowledged, however, that they also received help from two civic-minded citizens, who were suspicious that something was happening when the bank was still in the dark.
In one case, a couple who went to use an ATM at First Bank's Guting branch in Taipei on the evening of July 10 found they had to wait behind two foreign nationals who were already using the machine.
The wife quickly figured the two men were up to something because they were wearing surgical masks and acted suspiciously, appearing to talk to somebody by phone while standing in front of the ATM.
She called the police to report the matter.
When police arrived, they found cash worth NT$60,000 stuck in the cash dispenser and contacted the bank asking for surveillance footage, but the bank said the video could not be provided until the branch opened the following morning.
A second incident was reported later that night, at around 2 a.m. Monday.
A man identified only by his surname Tsai noticed two foreign nationals -- Russians Sergey Berezovskiy and Vladimir Berkman -- acting suspiciously at another First Bank branch in Nanmen, also in Taipei.
As he moved closer to ask them what they were doing, he yelled to his mother in a nearby apartment to call the police.
The man then grabbed Berezoskiy, and the latter, trying to escape, lost his credit card in the struggle. Tsai then took note of the fleeing car's license plate number.
Berezovskiy and Berkman hurriedly left Taiwan via Hong Kong to Moscow just hours later, before the bank's offices opened at 9 a.m., but police were able to use the credit card to identify Berezovskiy as a suspect and trace his actions when he was in Taiwan.
Taiwan's many surveillance cameras also fed police important information about where the suspects stopped in Taiwan.
Images of the suspects in front of the ATMs, buying a bill counting machine and rubber bands at a Taipei shopping mall and carrying luggage stored with bills surfaced through the cameras, and police were also able to track their rental car through the footage.
Police said that Berezovskiy and Berkman checked into the Grand Hyatt Taipei during their stay in Taiwan, but when they left on Monday morning, they told the hotel not to clean the room because another "partner" -- Peregudovs -- would check in.
Peregudovs entered Taiwan on July 11, checked into the Grand Hyatt Taipei, and then transferred to a rented studio on Minsheng East Rd.
Cameras picked him up leaving the studio with suitcases in a taxi on July 12. The taxi was then traced to a mountain trail in Neihu and then to downtown Ximenting.
When he finally returned to the studio, the luggage was gone.
The suspects in the heist, which used malware to get the ATMs to "spit" out of money continuously without inserting a card, came from six nations -- Russia, Moldova, Estonia, Romania, Latvia and Australia.
They entered and exited Taiwan at different times to try to avoid police detection.
But police said they left clues in their wake and the ever present surveillance cameras left them no place to hide, even if 13 of them have already fled Taiwan.
