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ATM Hacker Arrested, Thanks to Reformed Con Man

by Amar Toor on May 6, 2010 at 06:10 AM

atm hackerIs a reformed con artist really a reformed con artist if he cons another criminal into a federal sting operation? That's the question Thor Alexander Morris must be asking himself after ending up on the wrong side of an undercover FBI investigation. The 19-year-old grocery store worker from North Carolina recently made the mistake of teaming up with a con artist from Houston to pull off a major ATM hacking project. Unfortunately for Morris, 34-year-old con Brian Rhett Martin had recently gone straight after getting out of jail, and had officially declared an end to his evil-doing days. As he began working with Morris, Martin also began saving all of their chatlog correspondences, and downloaded a bunch of photos of Morris from his Facebook profile. He then handed everything over to the FBI, which later sent an undercover agent disguised as a local hoodlum named "Leo."

When Morris flew into Houston to begin hacking into some ATMs, Leo met him at the airport, and drove him to a Walmart to pick up a prepaid debit card, which he activated under the name "Barack Obama." As Leo drove the hacker to his first targeted ATM, Morris allegedly told the undercover fed all about his ATM-hacking exploits in other states, and recounted stories of other hack jobs involving credit cards. When they finally arrived at the Mercado 6 flea market to break into the cash machine, Morris put on his so-called "Rick James" wig, and coolly set about doing his thing. He ran into trouble early on, though, and before he could figure out how to get himself out of it, FBI agents came out and arrested him.

As Wired reports, Morris was planning on hacking up to 30 Houston-area ATMs to rake in at least $250,000. Who knows if he ever had the brain power needed to pull off such a feat; it's not exactly a genius hacker move to make your photos visible on Facebook or to make your handle "Barack Obama." But thanks to one "reformed" con artist, he'll never have the chance to try. [From: Wired]

Tags: ATM, atmhack, ConArtists, crime, fbi, hacking, informant, police, security, top

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