Prosecutors charged four Venezuelan nationals with stealing $529,220 from ATMs along Interstate 95 in Connecticut during a 10-day spree last August, using specialized hardware and malware to force the machines to dispense cash.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut announced the charges Monday against Euclides Moreno Itanare, 28; Willian Ricardo Flores, 49; Alberto Jose Freites Arvilla, 41; and Luis Jose Freites Arvilla, 38. All four are citizens of Venezuela, prosecutors said. Two of the men live in New York, one resides in Massachusetts, and one is from North Carolina.
According to court documents, the group targeted at least nine ATMs between Aug. 8 and Aug. 18, 2025, at rest stops along the I-95 corridor from Darien to New Haven. Prosecutors said the men used “specialized hardware and malware” to corrupt the machines and cause them to dispense an almost unlimited amount of cash.
The largest single haul occurred at a northbound rest stop in Fairfield, where the group took $136,000, prosecutors said. From eight ATMs over the 10-day period, the men stole a total of $529,220. A ninth machine in Ansonia was protected by a software patch that prevented the theft on the first day of the spree, according to court documents.
Prosecutors described a consistent pattern of behavior across the thefts. Surveillance video showed Luis Freites Arvilla acting as a lookout while Alberto Freites Arvilla opened the ATM’s hood and accessed its internal components, then left the area. Over the course of several hours, Luis Freites Arvilla, Itanare, and Flores took turns withdrawing cash from the ATM.
The defendants sometimes changed clothes in an attempt to avoid suspicion when approaching the same ATM multiple times, prosecutors said. Photographs released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and believed to have been taken by the alleged robbers show the men tinkering with ATM machines and displaying large amounts of cash.
The four were arrested Thursday after a joint investigation by the FBI, Connecticut State Police, and the police departments of Raleigh, North Carolina, and New York. They remain in custody awaiting court proceedings.
The men face charges of interstate transportation of stolen property, which carries a maximum prison term of 10 years, and conspiracy, which carries a maximum of five years if convicted.
The case echoes warnings issued in 2018 by two of the world’s largest ATM manufacturers and the U.S. Secret Service that cybercriminals were targeting machines with malware to extract cash, a method commonly known as jackpotting.