They were the Aussie Ocean's Eleven - no guns, no masks, no getaway cars. with the last of the crew behind bars, Kate McClymont details how a group of robbers staged one of history's biggest bank heists - without setting foot in a bank.
It's lunch time on Christmas Eve 2003, and last-minute shoppers, jostling and rushing past to get everything done on time, pay scant attention to the two men entering a side door of Telstra's* phone exchange in Dalley Street, in the heart of Sydney's CBD. Using his Telstra card to swipe himself through the security door, Barry Osborne, 42, a Telstra linesman, along with Ernst Hufnagl, 52, an underworld figure, confront a spaghetti-like network of phone cables covering a large swathe of the city.
Osborne knows exactly what he's looking for. It only takes a matter of minutes for the wiring whiz to hack into cables connecting him to a special phone line at State Street Global Advisers (SSGA), an international financial outfit, housed in a skyscraper across town, that manages billions of dollars. Osborne needs this authorised line to send a fax containing investment instructions to JPMorgan Chase, another banking monolith located only a stone's throw from the Telstra exchange. Once Osborne has hot-wired the line, and he has the two financial giants "talking" to one another, Hufnagl sends a five-page fax through to JPMorgan, purportedly from SSGA, requesting a $150 million transfer from account number 28966, belonging to the superannuation funds of federal public servants.
The first page of the fax goes through without a hitch. But when the remaining pages stall, there are several minutes of white-knuckle panic. After multiple failed attempts, and with precious minutes slipping away, the two are forced to switch to a generic Telstra fax line, figuring it will be the number on the title page that counts.
Over in a secure room at JPMorgan, a fax machine spits out the first page, then suddenly stops. Although a senior clerk puts in a call to SSGA about the missing pages, this is the day before Christmas, and no one calls back. And sure enough, soon the remaining pages roll out of the machine, full of dollar signs in stark black and white. A $150 million transfer, into four nominated overseas bank accounts. Two of the accounts are with the HSBC bank in Hong Kong: one, for a company registered in the British Virgin Islands used for depositing money into gambling cruises, is to receive $30 million; the other, for a company involved with gambling in Macau, is to get $20.6 million. The third account, in the name of a Richard Kurland at Switzerland's Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, is to receive $26.7 million. The fourth account, in the name of Stylianou Georgios Ltd at Greece's Laiki Bank, is to be injected with $71.9 million.
Meanwhile, the two swindlers still have their biggest security hurdle to cross - the "confirmation call back". Using the SSGA line that Osborne has hacked into, and posing as Craig Slater, an authorised signatory to the Commonwealth Super account, Hufnagl calls Greg Bourchier, an assistant treasurer at JPMorgan. In his best attempt at impersonating a banker, Hufnagl asks Bourchier, a pudgy, rather nervous man, to complete the "call back" to the designated line at SSGA, confirming that all details in the faxed instruction are correct.
Everything appears to be proceeding to plan. The two men are jubilant as they pack up their tool kit and gear. And there is a spring in Hufnagl's step as he walks the short distance to a seedy strip joint on Market Street called Lady Jane's, to report back to his boss, underworld legend "Teflon" Tony Vincent, who has masterminded the operation. In sheer daring, the Vincent plan is in a class with some of the best heist movies ever made - an Australian "Ocean's Eleven", if you like. But for now, all Hufnagl can think about is what he'll do with his cut.
Later that afternoon, senior bank staff from JPMorgan return from their festive Christmas lunch, eager to get away on their four-day holiday. Despite noticing that the people from SSGA have mistakenly dated the fax November rather than December, they authorise the release of a colossal $150 million. Within minutes, four overseas bank accounts with next to no money in them - two in Hong Kong, one in Switzerland and one in Greece - are bursting with balances each in the tens of millions.
*Aus's main telephone company
Story continues here.....
Southern Ocean's 11
Southern Ocean's 11
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”