Interesting story in the UK Guardian newspaper.

Members of an international crime syndicate are suspected of stealing more than 1.4bn yen (US$12.7m) from cash machines in Japan in the space of less than three hours, in an audacious heist that involved thousands of coordinated withdrawals.

Police believe that as many as 100 people, none of whom have been apprehended, worked together using forged credit cards containing account details illegally obtained from a bank in South Africa.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/japan-cash-machine-100-thieves-steal-13m-dollars-three-hours

Maybe on their way next to Thailand

Yes, a concern. You have to wonder where these crooks are getting the account info. A "bank in South Africa" doesn't really reveal much.

Apparently it was Standard Bank.

http://ewn.co.za/2016/05/23/Standard-Bank-confirms-R300m-lost-in-credit-card-scam

STANDARD BANK CONFIRMS R300M LOST IN CREDIT CARD SCAM

The scam involved the withdrawal of cash using a small number of fictitious cards at various ATMs in Japan.

This has been coming for awhile now...digital money is next...taken electronically from one's account and deposited in Ukraine or someplace like that where the crime syndicate has hired expert internet gurus to do their white collar crimes...

Digital money...money in ATMs...and anything that is paper will be subject to abuse...more frequently as time goes on...all nations will feel the pain...

Hard assets...precious metals...land and such is harder to steal...

one would assume these are chip reader atm and cards

Why assume that? My bet would be these were magnetic stripe cards that were forged since chips are supposedly super hard to forge.

Some very important info missing from the article I read.

They took $13 mil from about 1,300 machines in two hours!

I do not think there was a gang of several hundred people perpetrating this crime.

So I wonder how they accessed 1.300 machines?

I think this is smoke up the arse.....no way 1300 ATM's get hit in less than 3 hours......?

I often think of the old saying I heard many years ago.

'If you want to rob a bank, own one.!'

There probably is no connection this time, but an interesting statement.

Owners have done it before and some are serving hard time!

I believe this robbery is the tip of the iceberg. More to come in several different ways and means.

I read the Kaiser Report and it's really scary,

FIAT money will be worthless soon so silver

and gold will be the future safe havens while

there is a big push towards bitcoin, i'm not

convinced on virtual money at the moment.

Things are brewing in the financial world and

i'm sure i will lose. Go to YouTube and search

the word ''silver'' and make sure you are

wearing safety glasses and a hard hat.

Block chain technology is the future of money, perhaps backed by precious metals...

AND,

Still wondering what the real story on this recent ATM hack is.

The criminals very definitely did not bring several hundred people into Japan to perpetrate the hack.

Something much more serious is underneath all of this.

Maybe the Hit Squad moved onto Taiwan after their plundering of the Japanese ATMs. At least they seem to have caught a few of those involved, unlike in Japan where the initial report indicated all of the team members successfully fled the scene.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36824507

'Three foreign suspects have been arrested in Taiwan in connection with the theft of $2.5m (£1.9m) from cash machines around the country.

A network of criminals from eastern Europe and Russia used malware to hack into dozens of First Commercial Bank ATMs, police say.

CCTV footage shows masked thieves walking away with bags of stolen cash.

One Latvian man was held in northeast Taiwan, while two other suspects were arrested in the capital Taipei.

More than half of the money has been recovered but another 13 suspects are believed to have fled the country.'