The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) has busted a gang of 33 for withdrawing substantial amounts of money from customer accounts at several banks.

Talat Hafiz, secretary-general of the Media and Banking Awareness Committee for Saudi Banks, disclosed this to a local newspaper here on Wednesday.

Hafiz said the arrests of the gang of foreign criminals followed intensive surveillance by Saudi banks. The banks had received several complaints from account holders that there were unauthorized withdrawals from their accounts.

Hafiz said the gang siphoned money from several accounts at various banks. The arrests took place about six months ago. Hafiz did not provide details of the gang, their nationalities or modus operandi. He would only confirm that there was no Saudi among the robbers.

The newspaper quoted a reliable source as saying that some banks have websites with poor security and are vulnerable to hacking. The source claimed there was a serious security weakness on the website of one local bank, allowing hackers to access customer accounts.

However, Hafiz said account holders were partly to blame because they were not conducting their transactions in a secure manner. The criminals were able to scan vital data secretly when customers were withdrawing funds from their accounts. Hafiz said Saudi banks have invested millions in security and have internationally bench-marked systems.

Economist Fadl Albuainain believes that the culprits used sophisticated methods to gain access to customer accounts. He said banks cannot stop this hacking or alert account holders beforehand.

“The banks have so far not issued detailed warnings. Routine messages on the need to exercise precaution will not help customers much to avert the risk,” he said.

Albuainain called on SAMA to evaluate the nature of the risk before identifying solutions to safeguard accounts. He said some banks need to review safety features of their websites.