Elvis Rafael Rodriguez (left) and Emir Yasser Yeje idiotically pose withawad of bills totaling about $40,000 after several alleged ATM jobs in Manhattan. (Gregory P. Mango)
These guys were rolling in dough, merrily driving along with wads of cash — all stolen from city ATMs in mere hours as part of a $45 million global heist, officials said yesterday.
The international gang’s New York faction managed to make 3,000 withdrawals from local banks using doctored debit cards during a 10-hour spree in February that netted $2.4 million, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said.
US Attorney Loretta Lynch called it the second-biggest robbery in New York history — behind only the 1978 Lufthansa heist made famous in the film “GoodFellas,” where thieves stole $5 million in cash and jewelry from JFK Airport.
“This was a 21st-century bank heist that reached through the Internet to span the globe,” she said.
“But instead of guns and masks, this cyber-crime organization used laptops and malware.”
Surveillance footage even captured alleged crew member José Familia Reyes on a frantic ATM tour of Manhattan on Feb. 19, when he alone managed to complete 37 withdrawals for a total of $30,514.
The footage shows his backpack straining to contain the loot as his trip progressed.
Prosecutors said the mass withdrawals occurred during two separate sprees in December 2012 and this past February.
Likely based abroad, the crew accessed MasterCard debit-card information from two banks — Bank of Muscat, based in Oman, and Rakbank, of the United Arab Emirates — and created new accounts for the debit cards with unlimited withdrawal limits.
Crew brass then dispatched a small army of “cashers” to make a total of 40,500 withdrawals at banks in 27 countries using their fabricated prepaid cards on Dec. 22, 2012 and this past Feb. 19.
Prosecutors showed pictures of two of the local suspects beaming with joy alongside plump stacks of bills gathered during one spree.
“If all of the cash withdrawn in New York alone were put together, the pile of $20 bills would be 43 feet tall,” Lynch said.
Reyes, Jael Mejia Collado, Joan Luis Minier Lara, Evan Jose Pena, Elvis Rafael Rodriguez, Emir Yasser Yeje and Chung Yu-Holguin — all of Yonkers — were arrested yesterday and hit with conspiracy and money-laundering raps.
An eighth defendant charged in the indictment, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Pena, was killed in the Dominican Republic in April, Lynch said. It was unclear if the slaying was tied to the ring.
The enterprise’s foreign leaders — who monitored the withdrawals until the banks terminated the compromised accounts — were paid a steady stream of kickbacks as the scheme progressed.
The defendants face a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail on each of the money-laundering charges and 7 1/2 years on the conspiracy to commit access device fraud rap. They will also be on the hook for up to $250,000 in restitution apiece.