Tokyo: About 1.44 billion yen, or more than $13 million, was illegally withdrawn with forged credit cards which is illegally obtained by hacking or other methods from all over the country and the amount is drawn from about 1,400 automated teller machines.
Japanese police are investigating the case. The police suspect that an international criminal organization is involved and a group of more than 100 people extracted the money from the ATMs, which were located in Tokyo and 16 prefectures.
About 100,000 yen, or $900, is drawn in each transaction over a period of about 2 1/2 hours on Sunday, May 15 between 5 a.m. to 8 a.m.
Based on the data leaked, it came to know that about 1,600 credit cards were issued by a bank in South Africa. The police is planning to cooperate with overseas investigative organizations via Interpol and also intend to identify the suspects by analyzing the images recorded by security cameras.