14 DAY TRIAL // A total of eight men, aged between 24 and 47, were arrested on Thursday and Friday by the UK Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) on suspicion of stealing £1.3 million ($2.1 million / €1.5 million) from a Barclays Bank branch.
According to the PCeU, the suspects stole the money from the Swiss Cottage branch of Barclays in April 2013. They used a keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) switch, which they attached to a 3G router, to hack the bank’s computers.
One of the suspects is said to have installed the device by posing as an IT engineer. He claimed he was there to fix computers. Once the KVM switch was in place, the cybercrooks could transfer money to predetermined bank accounts.
Residences in Westminster, Newham, Camden, Brent and Essex are being searched. Cash, jewelry, personal data, credit cards and drugs have been already seized. Authorities believe a London residence was used as the central hub of operations by the alleged cybercriminals.
“These arrests were achieved working in partnership with the Virtual Task Force (VTF), an unique information sharing cyber collaboration between the PCeU and the UK Banking sector,” stated Detective Inspector Mark Raymond of the Met's PCeU.
“Those responsible for this offence are significant players within a sophisticated and determined Organised Criminal Network, who used considerable technical abilities and traditional criminal know-how to infiltrate and exploit secure banking systems.”
In this case, Barclays has recovered a significant amount of the stolen funds. However, the incident highlights that such crimes are becoming more and more popular among crooks. Last week, 12 men were arrested for using a KVM switch in an effort to take control of computers from a London branch of Santander.