Investigation of banking hack leads to arrests in Germany, Brazil
German and Brazilian authorities said there were multiple arrests this week related to a late 2023 hack that drained an estimated €30 million ($34.7 million) from German bank accounts.
Germany’s federal police agency, the BKA, said three suspects were picked up in Europe and charged with fraud, and Brazil’s federal police said four others were arrested on similar charges there as part of Operação Klonen (Operation Clone), which executed 21 search and seizure warrants nationwide.
Over four days in November 2023, the hackers were able to make “numerous unauthorized withdrawals from the accounts of German online banking users” by exploiting a vulnerability in a payment provider, the BKA said. Brazilian authorities said the process involved cloned payment cards.
The criminals then moved and laundered the money through networks in Brazil and four European countries, police said.
Neither police agency specified the affected bank, but Brazilian media reported that it was Germany’s Commerzbank. German media reported in late 2023 that Commerzbank had suffered a €30 million hack. At the time, the Frankfurt-based bank said customers would not incur losses. The bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suspects detained in Europe will be prosecuted in Spain and Bulgaria, the BKA said. Spanish and Bulgarian authorities assisted in the investigation, the agency said, as well as the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office.
Brazilian authorities said courts there ordered the seizure of “financial assets, vehicles, and real estate” worth more than $20 million.
There was a twist, too: A person identified in the investigation “was a candidate for elected office in 2024 and used part of the illicitly obtained money in his campaign,” Brazilian police said. They did not release his name.
Local media reported he had been a city council candidate in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian police also said they seized a 3-D printer used to make weapons as part of the sweep for suspects.
Joe Warminsky
has been the news editor for Recorded Future News since 2022. He has three decades of experience as an editor and writer in the Washington, D.C., area. He previously he helped lead CyberScoop for more than five years. Prior to that, he was a digital editor at WAMU 88.5, the NPR affiliate in Washington, and he spent more than a decade editing coverage of Congress for CQ Roll Call.