The City of London police have arrested a Romanian man thought to be a member of a gang that stole £1.5 million pounds from UK cash machines.

The heist took place in 2014 when the gang hit 51 machines in London, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Liverpool and Portsmouth. The criminals literally broke into the machines and installed the malware. Once the money was stolen, the malware deleted itself.

The arrest was only one in a string of arrests related to the heist. Teofil Bortos, 36, from Newham in London, was arrested in January and admitted to his role in the theft and was sentenced to seven years in prison. A year before that, Grigore Paladi was arrested and sentenced to five years.

Detective inspector Matthew Mountford, head of the London Regional Fraud Team, said that extradition is one of the barriers to successful prosecution. However, in this case, said Mountford, “overseas law enforcement have been extremely co-operative, especially in Romania.”

David Emm, principal security researcher at Kasperky Lab said that, “in contrast to a traditional card skimmer, there are no physical signs that the ATM is infected, leaving the attackers free to capture data from cards used at the ATM, including a customer's bank account number and PIN, or steal cash directly.”

Emm added, “The police have already arrested other suspects for their alleged involvement in this crime, so it's possible that others are involved, though it's not possible to be sure. The successful conviction of those involved in cyber-criminal activities is always positive, not least because it underlines the fact that such activities are not risk-free”.

Source: SCMagazine