Two Venezuelan nationals convicted of utilizing malware to steal money from ATMs will probably be deported, the US Division of Justice introduced this week.
The suspects, 34-year-old Luz Granados and 40-year-old Johan Gonzalez-Jimenez, performed ATM jackpotting, eradicating the focused ATM’s outer casing and connecting a laptop computer to the machine to put in malware. The malware then enabled them to instruct the ATM to dispense all its money.
Granados, sentenced to time served, should pay $126,340 in restitution, whereas Gonzalez-Jimenez, sentenced to 18 months in jail, was ordered to pay $285,100.
Each defendants face deportation, with Granados at the moment in custody awaiting elimination and Gonzalez-Jimenez set to be deported following his jail sentence.
This got here lower than two weeks after the DoJ introduced {that a} group of 5 Venezuelan nationals had pleaded responsible or been sentenced for his or her position in a multi-state ATM jackpotting ring. Additionally they confronted deportation.
The US introduced in December costs towards 54 people, together with leaders and members of the Venezuelan crime syndicate Tren de Aragua, over their alleged roles in an enormous ATM jackpotting marketing campaign.Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
The December announcement named the malware used within the assaults: Ploutus.
The Ploutus malware has been round for greater than a decade, and whereas it hasn’t been within the information a lot since its peak in 2017 and 2018, it doubtless hasn’t disappeared.
Whereas the newest public alerts referencing Ploutus are from 2022, data shared by the DoJ signifies it was used as lately as August 2025.
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