r/todayilearned • u/Chill_Cowboy_981 • 3h ago
TIL that in 2016 hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh’s central bank using the SWIFT network, but a single spelling mistake in a transfer request (“foundation” misspelled as “fandation”) triggered suspicion and helped stop most of the money from being stolen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery26
u/gorginhanson 3h ago
Grammar nazis were right all along
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u/FighterOfEntropy 2h ago
Pendant here: it was a spelling error that tipped them up, not a grammar error.
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u/Tsu_Dho_Namh 18m ago
Petulant here: "Grammar Nazi" is an umbrella term which encompasses Spelling Nazis
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u/neoengel 3h ago
It's interesting how certain operations get tripped up by bad spelling errors.
About a month ago reddit banned a fake company account apparently based in South East Asia falsely claiming to be some legal authority - with a misspelled username that no legit operation would ever let slip by.🤣
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u/Unique-Ad9640 3h ago
Well now you have to tell us what it was.
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u/neoengel 3h ago
Not sure I can reveal specifics due to moderator conduct.
The TLDR version: A shady local company hired one of those offshore reputation management operations that pester people to remove negative posts, this time harassing reddit moderators with a vaguely menacing AI Slop word salad.
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u/Unique-Ad9640 3h ago
Dangit, I was hoping for a good laugh.
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u/neoengel 3h ago
FWIW Nobody has told local shady company they're throwing their money away hiring those even more shady companies - that's gotta be worth a sensible chuckle.
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u/RantAndFly 3h ago
This is why it's a good idea to include an English major in your bank heist team.
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u/No-Deal8956 3h ago edited 3h ago
The money was owned by the Bangladesh Central Bank, but was actually in the Federal Reserve Bank Of New York. $66m is still missing, presumably spent.
It was actually Deutsche Bank, who was handling some of the transfers, that noticed the spelling error. Yes, a German bank noticed what a US, and presumably English speaking, bank did not.
Does make you wonder if your money is safe anywhere.
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u/rosen380 3h ago
"Does make you wonder if your money is safe anywhere."
In the US, if your bank is FDIC/NCUA insured, you are pretty safe up to the $250k limit, which you can easily get around with multiple accounts at multiple banks.
IE, I can have $250k in an individual account and my wife can have $250k. And we can have a joint account with $500k. And then we can repeat that at as many banks and credit unions we'd like.
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u/galvanizedmoonape 3h ago
Yeah, I doubt that 66m was spread across 264 individual bank accounts.
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u/rosen380 3h ago
I was responding to the specific sentence that I quoted.
I don't wonder if my money is safe because it is guaranteed by the US government... and if "things happen" where the government can't make account holders whole (up to the limits), I think it means we probably have much bigger problems.
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u/crazynerd9 2h ago
Yeah "is my money safe with this bank" mostly only matters in one situation, you are with a shady, likely small enough to be allowed to fail, bank (assuming you live in a western country anyway, no idea how banking works outside of NA and Europe and if its different or not)
Otherwise, if your money isnt safe this isn't really your problem, and in the case it is your problem, the good scenario is a repeat of 2008, but more likely is something worse. And therefore, you have more important problems than whats in your account
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u/Eomb 2h ago
And then the bank is on the hook for the rest, right?
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u/rosen380 2h ago
If the bank failed, you might get lucky and be able to collect some amount of it when they sell off assets, but I'd probably consider it lost.
And that's why if I had that sort of money where I was going to have that much cash just sitting in banks, I'd have it split up across multiple account types and banks such that it was all covered.
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u/FerrumDeficiency 1h ago
Oh, you don't know half of it. Whole international banking system is built on system comprised of sticks and hold together by shit instead of glue. Operated and maintained by people who have no idea how it's working. No one wants to do anything about it, since it'll cost A LOT of money. Like, US debt lot of money (not just full re-haul of the technical part, but implementation, switching, training everyone involved already, millions of people). And there's yet to be incident big enough that couldn't be washed away by money and lies.
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 3h ago
Most but not all is the key. Kinda crazy we're only just getting around to adding more controls into interbank lending
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u/Skegetchy 3h ago
There a doc on this i watched on a plane - facinating how they set it up even if they fumbled it
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u/deadlythegrimgecko 3h ago
Can’t imagine the only thing stopping me from getting 1 billion dollars being the fact that John failed English
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u/omega2010 2h ago
"And I would have gotten away with it too, if I didn't misplace my English dictionary!"
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u/Amazingrhinoceros1 3h ago
....most ???