I once worked for a company who’s Financial Director often said that if he was going to steal from the firm it would a huge amount – no petty thieving for him! The global ATM robbery which came to light this week would have been what he had in mind.
The sheer scale of the debit card fraud at €45 million is mind-blowing. The thieves hacked into the pre-paid debit card accounts held by the RakBank of United Arab Emirates and eliminated the withdrawal limits. With the limits gone the hackers encoded account information on to magnetic-stripe cards and distributed them to their accomplices in 20 different countries.
They were the people who operated the ATM’s and were themselves monitored by those behind the hacking computers who not only kept the whole operation under control but ensured that they themselves were not short-changed on their cut of the vast sums that were being withdrawn!
They organised a “trial” run on 21st December involving 4,500 transactions world-wide stealing $5 million. Following its success they mounted a big one on 19th February this year involving 36,000 transactions in 24 countries and stealing $40 million.
Despite the US secret service becoming involved last December the only arrests made to date have been the “cashing crews” who had the job of collecting these vast sums of bank notes. They were picked up in New York on CCTV cameras at the ATM’s stuffing rucksacks full of notes. The other give away was the number of Rolex watches they were buying with their new found wealth!
It is unlikely that the masterminds behind the heist will ever be caught.
St Luke is the only Gospel writer to include Jesus’s parable of the shrewd Manager whose dishonesty was discovered and subsequently was called to give an account to his Master. The Manager acted fast and offering large discounts to the Master’s debtors, collected a large amount of outstanding debt and earned himself much goodwill from these clients which he would doubtless need to draw on when he was fired!
Surprisingly the Master commends the Manager for his shrewdness!
What are to make of all this?
St Luke unfolds the parable explaining how much better at planning and organising are the people of this world with self interest motivating them than the “sons of light” i.e. Christians with their desire to promote the cause of Christ as their motivator, St Luke chapter 16 verses 1-9.
To bring it up to date, just think if all the organisational skills and ingenuity that went into this massive heist had been channelled into promoting the cause of Christ….
Of course the parable is meant to have us examine how much planning we put into the promotion of the Gospel compared to the time we spend in planning work, holidays, hobbies etc.
As one believer, who had thought this through, said, “If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” (C.T.Studd)