Twelve men have been arrested after police uncovered a scheme to steal millions of pounds from Spanish bank Santander.
The culprits allegedly gained control of the bank's computer remotely via a man posing as a maintenance engineer, who covertly fitted a keyboard video mouse device to a branch computer.
The gang, which police claim ran its operation out of a small office in a shed in west London, planned to use WiFi to connect to the device and transfer funds electronically.
However, officers from the Metropolitan Police's special E-Crime unit discovered the bank was being targeted, and tipped the bank off although they were unsure which actual branch might be attacked.
The cyber heist failed and the bank said no money was stolen. Had the plot been successful, police say the cyber thieves could have accessed millions of pounds of customer funds.
According to the BBC, this is not the first time police have seen such a device used, but it was the first time they have seen it used by an organised criminal network. Police described the case as the "most significant" of its kind to date.
Four men have subsequently been charged with conspiracy to steal. They are Lanre Mullins-Abudu (25), Dean Outram (34), Akash Vaghela (27), and Asad Ali Qureshi (35).
All four will appear at Southward Crown court later this month. Vaghela has been released on bail to appear at the same hearing. Eight other people have been bailed pending further enquiries.
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