BRITAIN: British detectives have foiled one of the world's biggest attempted bank thefts.
The audacious plan was to steal £220 million (€316 million) from the London offices of the Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui.
A high-tech crime ring planned to hack their way into Sumitomo's computer systems and transfer money electronically to 10 bank accounts around the world.
The plan was uncovered before any money was stolen.
A man has been arrested by police in Israel after the plot was uncovered by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit.
Yeron Bolondi (32) was seized after an attempt to transfer £13.9 million into an account there "by deception in a sophisticated manner".
His relationship with the gang which tried to break into Sumitomo's network is unknown.
Detectives are still hunting more suspects in connection with the plot. The crime unit is understood to have officers working in Israel and elsewhere in an effort to crack the gang.
As details of the foiled plot emerged, computer experts warned Britain's major banks and financial institutions to be alert to the growing threat posed by cyber criminals. If successful, the theft would have been one of world's largest bank robberies.
The amount stolen would have dwarfed the £26 million worth of gold bullion taken in the Brinks Mat raid at Heathrow in 1983.
It would even have been worth more than the attempted theft of £200 million worth of diamonds from the Millennium Dome in November 2000.
The theft of up to £26.5 million from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast last December is thought to be the UK's biggest cash robbery.
The crime unit has been investigating the electronic attack on Sumitomo since October, after the gang gained access to the bank's computer systems and tried to transfer the money.
The hackers managed to infiltrate the system with sophisticated key-logging software that would have enabled them to track every button pressed on computer keyboards.From that they could learn account numbers, passwords and other sensitive information.