Taiwan prosecutors are seeking a 12-year prison term for each of three foreigners accused of stealing 83mn Taiwan dollars ($2.6mn) from hacked cash machines in Taiwan in July, state media reported on Tuesday.
The heavy penalty is because the case disturbed Taiwan's financial order and caused a panic, the Taipei District Prosecutors' office said late on Tuesday.
The three suspects, including a Latvian and two Romanians, belong to a multinational criminal ring, prosecutors said in a statement.
Taiwan has promulgated an order for the arrest of the remaining 19 suspects, who had absconded from Taiwan after committing the crime, prosecutors said.
Other suspects involved in the ATM heists are from different countries including Moldova, Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Australia and France.
This is the first time that an international team of ATM thieves has hit Taiwan. The suspects stole banknotes from 41 hacked ATMs at 22 branches of First Bank in different jurisdictions, including the capital Taipei, on July 9 and 10.
About 77.5mn Taiwan dollars have been retrieved, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san on Tuesday praised two Taiwanese witnesses, who reported to police on July 10 that they had seen two foreigners hastily leaving an ATM booth in Taipei, where some bills were left on the ground, state-run Central News Agency (CNA) reported.
According to Chiu, many other countries had been facing the challenges of financial crime involving international criminal rings.
"The seizure of these suspects in Taiwan has caught international attention," Chiu was quoted by CNA as saying.
