14 DAY TRIAL // Argenys Rodriguez, 22, of Springfield, MA, has been sentenced to 12 months and one day of imprisonment by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant for multiple ATM jackpotting heists.
ATM jackpotting is a sophisticated attack through which criminals use malicious tools and hardware to make ATMs spit out large amounts of cash.
As found out during the case investigation lead by multiple law enforcement agencies, Rodriguez and his accomplice Alex Alberto Fajin-Diaz dressed up as ATM repair technicians and installed jackpotting malware on multiple ATM machines.
Afterward, some other crooks in their group would go over to the ATMs and extract all the cash available in the machines.
One of the heists was detected by Citizens Bank on January 27, 2018, when they contacted the Cromwell Police Department which managed to catch Rodriguez and Fajin-Diaz near an already compromised ATM, with a collection of tools matching the toolkit needed to perform jackpotting attacks.
Rodriguez' criminal group managed to attack and compromise multiple ATMs until they got arrested
In a quick car search, Cromwell PD's officers were able to find $5,600 in cash and further investigation following this incident allowed the police department to find out that the ATM jackpotting criminals made it out with $63,200 in total that day.
Further investigation helped the police that the criminal group also extracted $63,820 on January 22, 2018, after compromising another Citizens Bank ATM, but this time in Rhode Island.
Argenys Rodriguez was convicted and ordered to pay $121,355.38 as restitution on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud after pleading guilty and after investigators found out about multiple ATM attacks in Connecticut and neighboring states.
His partner Fajin-Diaz, a citizen of Spain, has been detained since his January 27 arrest and has also pleaded guilty to the same charge on June 12, 2018, and still awaits his sentence.