LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - British police said on Fridaythey had arrested eight people including the suspectedmastermind of a cyber-theft in which criminals infiltrated thecomputer system of a branch of Barclays bank and stole1.3 million pounds ($2.1 million).
Last week police arrested 12 men allegedly planning to stealmillions of pounds from a London branch of Santander UK with the same device - a "keyboard, video and mouse" (KVM) thatallows legitimate workers to access computers remotely.
The Barclays gang are accused of stealing the money in Aprilafter one of them posed as an IT engineer to attach the KVM to acomputer at the bank's local Swiss Cottage branch in London.
"This was a highly organised criminal network with eachindividual filling a specific role," said DetectiveSuperintendent Terry Wilson, head of London Police's Centrale-Crime Unit.
"All criminal networks have a head and we very much believewe have now apprehended our 'Mr Big' as part of this operation.We believe this has put a major dent in this alleged criminalnetwork's ability to commit cyber-crime in this country."
The KVM enabled the perpetrators to remotely siphon off cashfrom customers' accounts and transfer it to bank accounts undertheir control, police said.
London detectives said the scam was a new and growing typeof cyber crime that was low-risk but gave high rewards. Wilsonsaid they were working with banks to boost safety measures.
"Those responsible for this offence are significant playerswithin a sophisticated and determined organised criminalnetwork, who used considerable technical abilities andtraditional criminal know-how to infiltrate and exploit securebanking systems," said Detective Inspector Mark Raymond.
Police said the eight men, aged between 24 and 47, had beenarrested on Thursday and Friday. Searches at properties acrossLondon yielded cash, jewellery and drugs as well as thousands ofcredit cards, and personal data.
Barclays were able to recover a significant amount of thestolen cash, the police said.