The money was withdrawn in less than three hours from 14,000 convenience store cash machines across Japan.
The withdrawals targeted 7-Eleven cash machines, which unlike most in Japan accept foreign cards. South Africas Standard Bank estimated its total losses at USD 19.25mln.
Standard Bank described the heist as ‘a sophisticated, co-ordinated fraud incident’ involving what it said was a ‘small number’ of fake cards from account data belonging to it.
Japanese police are now examining security camera footage to identify suspects, and both countries are working with world police body Interpol to investigate how the data was stolen and how the heist was co-ordinated.
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