A 26-year-old Chicago man is accused of pulling off a fast, high-dollar run of ATM "jackpotting" hits across Waukesha County and nearby Milwaukee suburbs, walking away with roughly $263,000 in cash in a single day, according to prosecutors.
Court filings name the suspect as Edison Landaeta Martinez. He faces three felony charges, is being held in the Waukesha County Jail on $300,000 bond, and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Dec. 15. Those details come from local court records and reporting by FOX6 News Milwaukee. Prosecutors say one of the thieves targeted a Summit Credit Union ATM in Waukesha.
Investigators allege Martinez swiped about $41,000 from that Summit machine on Nov. 16, then hit two more bank ATMs in Wauwatosa and Oak Creek later that same day, grabbing just over $222,000 from those locations. Taken together, the figures in the complaints total roughly $263,000. "It's more prevalent right now," said April DeValkenaere of Fortress Forensic Investigations, commenting on the broader rise in jackpotting schemes. Authorities say they later tracked Martinez's vehicle to credit unions in Michigan before he was arrested at the request of Waukesha police, according to reporting and court documents summarized by FOX6 News Milwaukee.
How jackpotting works
Jackpotting is a hybrid cyber and physical attack in which thieves tamper with an ATM's internal hardware or software so the machine can be told to spit out cash without linking the withdrawals to any customer's account. Federal prosecutors have brought multistate jackpotting cases in places such as New York and Nebraska that show how crews can travel quickly and hit machines across state lines.
In those federal cases, the U.S. Department of Justice has described suspects installing malware or swapping out machine components to force ATMs into large, unauthorized payouts, as outlined by the U.S. Department of Justice and a second U.S. Department of Justice office in Nebraska.
Recent Midwest cases and local response
Wisconsin authorities are not new to this type of crime. Law enforcement in Wood County investigated a similar jackpotting incident in December, when suspects were arrested after more than $114,000 was removed from a Marshfield ATM, in a case that mirrors the methods now alleged in Waukesha. Banks and credit unions report that they are tightening access to ATM internals, increasing monitoring, and trading notes with law enforcement to reduce repeat hits. Details on the Wood County case and the tactics involved have been reported by WSAW.
What's next
Martinez is set to return to Waukesha County court on Dec. 15 for a preliminary hearing, where prosecutors will lay out evidence before a judge decides whether the case should proceed to trial. According to the criminal complaint, another suspect is named but was not in custody as of the most recent reports, and investigators say they tracked Martinez's vehicle across state lines in the days following the alleged Waukesha thefts. Prosecutors and court records provide the basis for the charges and dates reported so far.
The case remains open and will keep moving through the county courts in the coming weeks. Investigators and bank officials say the episode highlights how quickly jackpotting crews can jump from one machine, city, or state to another, and why coordination across agencies has become crucial in trying to keep up.
