Phoney lord jailed over bank hacking attempt

A man has been jailed for eight years for the attempted theft on Sumitomo bank

A self-styled British 'lord' has been jailed for eight years for his part in a plot to steal $229m (£158m) using malicious software.

Hugh Rodley, who bought a lordship, was described as the front man for an organised gang that had planned to subvert a bank's computer systems to carry out Britain's biggest robbery.

The court heard how Rodley set up accounts at the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, supposedly for his business interests. The accounts were to be used to manage the stolen money.

Two hackers were used in the attack, after the bank's security supervisor, Kevin O'Donoghue, agreed to let them have access to the banking systems at the London headquarters.

Jan Van Osselaer from Belgium and Gilles Poelvoorde from France were let into the building and given fake security passes by O'Donoghue. Once inside they installed keylogging software on the servers that would track senior executives and steal access codes to the bank's financial systems.

A few days later the two returned and retrieved the information for analysis. After a few weeks of preparation, O'Donoghue let them back into the building and they attempted to transfer $229m from corporations including Toshiba and Nomura into Rodley's accounts.

However, despite two attempts, the men were unable to transfer the funds and abandoned their attempts. It turns out that they had made a small mistake in the transfer orders.

Bank staff noticed the failed transactions and the police were called. The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, now part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, conducted an international inquiry and the case quickly unravelled.

Rodley received a sentence of eight years, while his co-conspirator who provided funds for the accounts received three years. O'Donoghue was jailed for four years and four months, Van Osselaer for three and a half years, while Poelvoorde received a four-year sentence.

However, there are now concerns that this is not the first time this kind of bank robbery has been attempted. When Poelvoorde was arrested police found a USB stick containing data on a similar crime against another unnamed target.