Sandwich, Mass. treasurer's office hacked

According to an article in the Boston Globe, the treasurer of the town of Sandwich, Mass, is reporting that almost $50,000 was stolen from bank accounts using usernames and passwords acquired through a keylogger.  The malware was installed on Treasurer Craig Mayen's PC and captured bank account credentials as Mr. Mayen logged into town bank accounts.

According to the article, the money "was then transferred to four accounts - three in Florida and one in Georgia."  The police were able to contact and question a man in Florida who opened one of the accounts and was trying to make a withdrawal.  But after the man was questioned, there is some question as to if the man was criminally involved in the scheme.  The man claims to have answered an advertisement that offered to pay him to open the account.

The hacker would then move funds from Sandwich into the account, and the Florida man would then wire it through Western Union to St. Petersburg, Russia.

Here's an excerpt from the article talking about some comments from Chief of Police, Michael J. Miller:

He said the culprits have been systematic in the account transfers in that each has been in amounts of less than $10,000 - the threshhold that banks use to notify FBI officials of significant monetary transfers.

This type of "small time" crime is a quick look into a large world-wide problem.  This quote from the article says it all:

The elaborate scheme is part of a larger, underground computer fraud economy that has netted hundreds of billions of dollars through identity theft, credit card fraud, and other breaches, said Dean Turner, director of global intelligence network for Symantec, a security software company.

And one more thing.  Does anyone really think this man in Florida was not criminally involved?  I say nyet.  How many advertisements do you think are legitimate when it offers to pay you to open a bank account and then transfer the money to Russia?  The guy had to know something was going on that smelled like Ukha (that's a Russian fish soup).