A national court judge charged nine people with fraud yesterday for allegedly participating in the theft of £27.6 million after a bank’s card payments system was hacked.

Seven Romanian and two Spanish suspects allegedly extracted money fraudulently from cash machines in February 2013.

Judge Eloy Velasco said that there was evidence that the suspects belonged to an international criminal organisation that also laundered money and took part in credit card fraud.

He added that the cash withdrawals were being made on a global scale and were linked to eight hackers in the US who penetrated the security of a company that handled an Omani bank’s card payments.

Access code numbers were distributed by the hackers to cyber thieves around the world who made 34,000 cash extractions in 23 countries within a space of 13 hours.

US secret services led Spanish police to the suspects, most of whom were arrested in December 2013.