The way these things are usually setup, the people using the cards have little to do with collecting the info, or making the cards. If a few are fought they don't know anything about the others, and are much harder to trace. So cops don't put a lot of effect into tracking these people.

There are now 100 people holding cash. How will the organizers get it back?

Dead drops? One guy talks, they have a drop site. Law enforcement knows how to do stakeouts. Wait until someone comes to pick up the cash from the drop site, tail him to wherever he goes next.

Deposit it in real banks and transfer it somewhere? Okay, now you don't even need a participant to cooperate, you can just identify him and pull his bank records.

Maybe they convert it to BTC. Are there mixing services doing enough volume to really be untraceable? Otherwise investigators can watch it on the other side and see whose bank account it gets converted into.

Pay cash upfront like a large drug deal between gangs.

Large drug deals between gangs are vulnerable to stakeouts and busts if one of the parties involved leaks the meeting time and location.

The whole point of mules is for them to get burned. Assuming this was done properly, every single one of those 100 people can get caught and the cops won't be any closer to catching the people responsible.

That only holds true once the money has percolated up the chain - if they catch anyone in the window prior to the handoff, it could be of use.

Of course, if they pulled this off effectively, the drops all were probably executed soon after the 2h window, and then you've got a much colder trail to follow, even if you find one of the mules and magically have video surveillance of the region.

In all likelihood the handoff would be executed via bitcoins or a wire transfer by whoever is coordinating the operation in Japan. In all likelihood the people actually responsible for the hack are going to be eastern european or Russian, and once the money is no longer in cash it'll be gone forever.

Good point. It will also be way more difficult to regulate the spending habits of the group, which will draw even more suspicion.

And then you have a 100-player Prisoner's Dilemma, unless they organized the group in a decentralized manner.

Why regulate? You could have accepted BitCoin up front, assigned ATMs, then distributed numbers at the last moment.

Cash flows up, risk flows down. Seems to be the MO of most organized crime.

>Good point. It will also be way more difficult to regulate the spending habits of the group, which will draw even more suspicion.

These 100 guys aren't a part of "the group" though, they're just random idiots hoping to score a quick buck.

The people actually running this in all likelihood aren't even in japan.

I am sure the Yakusa can find 100 foot soldiers with to much difficulty.

More likely, the Yakusa can find 100 random people who they have some sort of leverage over and who know virtually nothing about anything of importance so it doesn't especially matter if they get arrested.

A bear jumps out of a bush and starts chasing two hikers. They both start running for their lives, but then one of them stops to put on his running shoes.

His friends says, "What are you doing? You can't outrun a bear!"

His friend replies, "I don't have to outrun the bear; I only have to outrun you!"