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From the captured transmissions they were able to piece together the meaning of the control sequence and the transfer itself. They also noticed that after the bank's computer had sent its transfer, the destination bank would repeat the transaction (by way of confirmation) and in ten seconds would message 'transaction completed', followed by the destination bank ID. The two guessed that the bank IDs were the standard Federal Reserve numbers for banks (every bank in America that deals with the Federal Reserve System has a number assigned to it, as do several European banks). To confirm the hunch, they called up their target and asked for its Federal Reserve number. It was the same as the ID being sent by the computer.

The two hackers now realized they had all the technical information they needed to raid the bank. They had discovered the codes and procedures for the control sequence and the transfers; they knew what the bank IDs signified; and from the Federal Reserve itself they got a listing of all the national and international bank ID numbers. They were convinced they could get the money out of the bank. Now they had to organize the downstream: a secure process of getting it into their own pockets.

One of the duo had a friend, an accountant of indifferent moral character, who opened a numbered Swiss account in a false name for the two hackers. He had originally laughed at the idea, explaining that an initial $50,000 was required to open a numbered account. When he was told to get the forms so the money could be wired to Switzerland, he began to take the scheme seriously. A few days later the accountant brought round the paperwork, the account number and several transaction slips. He also raised his usual $1,000 fee to $6,500 – apparently the amount he owed on his wife's BMW.

The two hackers flew to Oklahoma City to visit the hall of records and get new birth certificates. With these, they obtained new Oklahoma IDs and Social Security Numbers. Then, using the false IDs, they opened accounts at six different banks in Houston and Dallas, with $1,000 cash deposited in each.

The next day, armed with one Swiss and six American accounts, they began the attack. They rigged the bank's computer controlling the EFT transfers to direct all of its data flow to an unused Telenet

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