14 DAY TRIAL // 45-year-old Sonya Martin has been sentenced to serve two years and six months in a federal prison for her involvement in one of the most sophisticated computer hacking and ATM cashout schemes ever.
“This case demonstrates the growing expertise and reach of law enforcement in combating international cyber criminals,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.
“We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners throughout the world to investigate and prosecute those who defraud victims in the United States, wherever the perpetrators may be.”
Besides the prison sentence, Martin has also received five years of supervised release and she has been ordered to pay a restitution of $89,120 (€72,000) — the amount of money stolen by the individuals she recruited.
The criminal ring of which the woman was part of was named responsible for hacking into the systems of WorldPay US (formerly known as RBS WorldPay) back in 2008.
From the company, the hackers stole the details of payroll debit cards, and raised the balances and ATM withdrawal limits on 44 accounts. From these accounts, the crooks managed to withdraw over $9 million (€7.3 million) in a time span of less than 12 hours.
To make sure that they wouldn’t raise too many alarm bells, the large amount was withdrawn from over 2,100 ATMs in various countries such as Russia, the US, Estonia, Ukraine, Italy, Hong Kong, Canada, and Japan.
Then they attempted to wipe their tracks by destroying the data stored in WorldPay’s networks.
Martin – who is from Nigeria – was responsible for supervising one of the crews from Chicago. She cloned a credit card with information from the hackers and handed it over to the ones she recruited for making the withdrawals.
“While this was a complex, internationally coordinated crime with many different players and components, it would not have gotten very far without the cashing crews,” Brian D. Lamkin of the FBI said.
“Today’s sentencing sends a cautionary message to those here in the U.S. who would aid and abet those individuals abroad in such criminal schemes that you will be held accountable.”