$15m ATM fraud after September 11

NEW YORK prosecutors said as many as 4,000 people used ATMs to steal $15 million from a municipal employees’ credit union whose computer security system was damaged in the September 11 attack.

Police said they had arrested 66 people and were seeking 35 others. But thousands more are under investigation in what already is one of the largest fraud cases to come out of the terrorist attack.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said the suspects found a way to repeatedly withdraw up to $500 a day from ATMs - even if their accounts at the Municipal Credit Union could not cover it.