14 DAY TRIAL // A suspect arrested at the start of January for being part of an international cybercrime group that robbed ATMs with malware has escaped from a Romanian prison earlier today.
The suspect, Renato Marius Tulli, 34, was being held at Police Precinct 19 in Bucharest, Romania's capital, after being arrested on January 5, 2016.
Authorities are saying that Tulli and a second suspect escaped while they and other prisoners were out in the precinct's yard, taking their daily outdoor break.
Suspects cut the fence and made a clean getaway
The two managed to cut the police precinct's fence and then escaped without being noticed by the two officers that were keeping watch.
The second suspect that got away with Tulli is named Grosu Gostel, 38, a man held on robbery charges. The two police officers that were on duty are now investigated on charges of negligence.
The suspects have broken out on Sunday, March 6, 12:30 PM, local time, and police forces started a city-wide manhunt in search of the two.
Tulli is a suspect in an Interpol investigation
Tulli was arrested together with seven other suspects as part of a joint Europol, Eurojust, and DIICOT investigation. The group he was part of was specialized in robbing NCR-based ATMs.
They operated only on weekend nights, in multiple stages. First someone would stake out possible targets. Then, in the second stage, a second group would come and insert a CD containing the Tyupkin malware in the CD-ROM slot on the back panel of NCR ATMs.
The malware allowed the group to take out small amounts of money, and then it would self-delete. The criminals operated between December 2014 and October 2015 in countries such as Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Russia. Europol estimates the group caused damages to financial institutions of around €200,000 / $217,000.