Barclays bank was taken for 1.3M pounds after a crew of eight men set up a KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) switch and 3G dongle to a terminal in one of the branches. On Thursday and Friday, the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit nabbed the suspects, aged between 24 and 47.

In a series of raids across London and Essex, police recovered "cash, jewelry, drugs, thousands of credit cards and personal data".

"The arrests are the result of a long-term intelligence-led operation by the Metropolitan Police's PeCU, in partnership with Barclays Bank, who have been investigating the theft of £1.3 million from the Swiss Cottage branch of Barclays in April 2013," a Met Police statement explains.

An individual posing as an IT worker installed the device on 4 April.

"A male purporting to be an IT engineer had gained access to the branch, falsely stating he was there to fix computers," the Met police statement explains. "He had then deployed the KVM device. This enabled the criminal group to remotely transfer monies to predetermined bank accounts under the control of the criminal group."