Thief steals $23K in cash from Hilton Head ATM without leaving a trace. How?
Armed with two cellphones and a cable, a hooded figure made off with $23,000 from an ATM on Hilton Head Island last month and is believed to have tampered with two other machines in the area.
Police say the suspect targeted three ATMs at Coastal States Bank locations in Beaufort County — two on Hilton Head and one in Bluffton — using the same specialized key to access their inner compartments.
After accessing the ATM’s motherboard, he used a pair of cellphones to upload a program that granted him unauthorized access to its system, allowing him to withdraw funds that were not in his account. Such programs are known as malicious software, or “malware” for short.
The $23,000 was nabbed late in the night of Sept. 17 from the Coastal States Bank location off Bow Circle on south-end Hilton Head. The other two ATMs were “tampered with” but did not have money stolen, according to an incident report from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
It appeared to be a statewide streak of “ATM jackpotting,” wherein hackers install malware or hardware to the machines that allows them to withdrawal huge amounts of cash on demand. It’s a relatively new type of cyberattack, with the first examples in the U.S. appearing around 2018.
Technicians with Coastal States Bank became aware of the potential jackpotting after receiving notifications overnight that the ATMs had “gone down.” Two of the three ATMs were inoperable and required repairs, according to the police report.
Authorities had not identified the suspect, who was seen on surveillance footage approaching the ATM on Bow Circle wearing gloves, a hooded sweatshirt, a full-face mask and a hat that appeared to have a built-in flashlight.
The same suspect may be involved in a similar theft on Sept. 14 in Florence, S.C., where an ATM belonging to First Reliance Bank was “completely emptied” after being tampered with. It matched the method that was used to access the machines in Beaufort County, police said.
Investigators from the U.S. Secret Service and other federal agencies were assisting Beaufort County and Bluffton police in the three local cases.
In February, Florence police arrested a New York City resident for allegedly taking part in a jackpotting group that stole $93,600 from a local ATM. The 41-year-old faced eight felony charges and remained in jail on bonds totaling $185,000 as of Wednesday.
‘Jackpotter’ caught on camera
The suspect’s first trip to the ATM on south-end Hilton Head ended without him stealing any cash — but he had likely already implanted the program allowing him to come back later for the jackpot.
Surveillance video from the bank around 10:30 p.m. Sept. 17 showed the hooded suspect crouching down to the ATM and unlocking the bottom compartment with a key. He then opens the machine’s top hatch and removes the faceplate from the motherboard, according to the police report.
The hooded figure then pulled out a cellphone with a cord plugged into it, inserting the other end into the ATM’s motherboard. He grabbed a second cellphone and briefly held it up to the first phone. Soon after, he was seen relocking the machine and leaving the area, the report says.
Christopher Matney, a banking service technician at the company used by Coastal States Bank, told police the malware used in jackpotting schemes disrupts ATMs’ safety features, allowing someone to “use any bank card and any PIN” to make unlimited withdrawals. Under the malicious software, the machine cannot decline the transactions and does not make a record of them.
In 2024, banks nationwide reported over $6 million in losses from more than 300 instances of ATM jackpotting, according to the ATM Industry Association. There were about 200 attacks reported in 2023.
This story was originally published October 1, 2025 at 4:21 PM.
