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IPFS News Link • Crime

A $500 Million Bank Heist And Its "Ocean's Eleven"-Style Schemers Thwarted...

• https://www.zerohedge.com, by Tyler Durden

It could go down as the largest heist that a single lowly bank teller ever thwarted in history. Not only did the window teller's own bank's system and higher ups at HSBC Holdings PLC fail to detect a fraudulent transfer of a half-billion dollars, but it initially appeared perfectly legitimate as even "the central bank's Swift message code indicated—inaccurately—that the money was for intrabank business with HSBC" according to an electrifying Wall Street Journal investigation of the scheme that reads like a Hollywood thriller. 

In September of 2017 an accountant walked into a suburban London branch of HSBC and requested a $2 million transfer from his account to Japan. When the teller pulled up the account and saw a balance of $500 million, she thought something seemed off, and told the man she wasn't able to make the transfer.