Stanley Mark Rifkin (born in 1946) is a convicted criminal in the United States responsible for stealing $10.2 million through wire transfer via telephone in the autumn of 1978.
[1] Working for a company under contract to develop a backup system for the Security Pacific National Bank wire room, Rifkin learned of the transfer procedures used, and found that bank agents would frequently write down the daily transfer code.
One day in mid-October 1978, he made his way into the transfer room, saw the code, memorized it and walked out.
Using social engineering techniques, he then made a few phone calls and had $10.2 million wired to the Irving Trust Company in New York City for the credit of the Wozchod Handels Bank of Zurich in Switzerland, where he'd already set up an account.
He then asked his former lawyer, Paul W. O'Brien, to negotiate giving the diamonds (then worth more in the USA than in Switzerland) to the Bank in exchange for a consulting contract to help solve the security problem he identified by his fraud.