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Robbing a bank ain’t what it used to be

The future of thievery
So what’s a bank robber to do?
 
Although the figures feared and revered by Americans during the country’s public enemy era have long since passed, the outlaw’s calling card of fast rewards and limited reprisals is by no means over. The difference is how the thieves with a real flair for filthy lucre are going digital.
 
While banks are tight-lipped about their Internet losses, an estimated $2 billion was stolen in 2003 and 2004 from online checking accounts — a number that has risen dramatically in recent years. The sum makes the $70 million lost annually in bank robberies appear almost trifling.
 
The methods for defrauding online consumers seem endless, from credit scams, identity theft, e-mailed come-ons, and phishing (tricking consumers into divulge valuable financial information).
 
Not surprisingly, the number of victims reporting instances of online theft has ex¬ploded — from 1380 in 1999 to 616,665 in 2004. Not coincidentally, the anonymity and global reach of the Internet have made it easier for electronic bandits to elude capture.
 
Meanwhile, the penalties for those caught are comparatively light. After netting roughly $50,000 during his bank-robbing career, Troy Evans, for example, served more than seven years in prison. By contrast in the early 1990s, one early adapting Russian thief managed, from his computer in St. Petersburg, to siphon roughly $10 million from Citibank. Convicted by a US judge, he was sentenced to only three years in prison.
 
Still, even as online thieves pursue their audacious gambits, a bit of nostalgia remains for their long-gone predecessors. In February, when a thief was convicted in Virginia of conspiracy to commit online bank fraud and identity theft, in a spree involving more than 1600 individuals, the name of his online persona was none other than John Dillinger.

Email the author
Te-Ping Chen: teping.chen@gmail.com

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