Stanley Rifkin and the $10.2 million wire transfer
The largest bank theft in American history, carried out with a memorised code and a phone call
Stanley Mark Rifkin was a consultant contracted to build a backup system for Security Pacific National Bank's wire room. He noticed that staff wrote the daily transfer code on a card on the wall. On 25 October 1978 he walked into the room, memorised the code and walked out.
He then telephoned the wire room posing as a bank officer, quoted the code, and had $10.2 million transferred to a New York bank for onward credit to an account in Switzerland. He converted the money into Russian diamonds and smuggled them back into the United States. He was arrested on 5 November and pleaded guilty.
There was no intrusion and no malicious code. A valid credential, correctly quoted, was enough — which is still the shape of most large financial fraud almost fifty years later.
The Hacker Chronicles
Volume One — Origins
This page is the summary. The chapter — ‘The Wire’ — follows the case properly: what was known at the time, who decided what, and how it actually unfolded rather than how it was later retold.
Two more volumes this year.
Going Geopolitical in October, Going Strategic in December.
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