Bed mattress still safest place to stash cash

Last week a ruling was handed down in the case of Su Qiang, a software engineer who stole more than 60,000RMB from the accounts of Shanghai MinSheng Bank (LinFen Rd branch) customers after successfully installing a program on their ATM operating systems that allowed him to collect the bank account and pin numbers of an estimated 7,000 customers. Su then purchased a card replicator on the black market which allowed him to recreate bank cards and withdraw money at will. He and his girlfriend eluded detection for three years by rotating through cards and never drawing more than a few thousand RMB at a time. Su will serve 5 years in prison and pay a fine of 50,000RMB for data theft. His girlfriend, Ah Feng, will serve 2 years and pay a fine of 20,000RMB.

Shanghai's largest banks are no strangers to large-scale bank fraud and with the newly imposed maximum ATM withdrawal limit set at a temptingly large sum of 20,000RMB a day, effective last month, Shanghaiist is betting that similar ATM fraud schemes will appear. On the bright side of things, the new ruling will shorten bank lines and lessen the chances of man purse-toting businessmen getting shot in the face by bank security guards.

Photo of confiscated hard drive and card blanks from Sina.com.