E-Crime

September, 1999

Vladimir Levin hardly seemed like a successor to legendary bank robber Willie Sutton as he went about his mundane tasks as head systems operator for a software company in St. Petersburg, Russia. But Levin, like Sutton, knew where the money was--and how to get it. It seems he was as adept at turning computers into burglary tools as he was at repairing them. In 1994, using an antiquated 286 laptop, Levin (known online as Vova) penetrated Citibank's wire transfer network and may have diverted milli...