With the federal officials having traced the hackers involved in the last-November theft of over $9 million from nearly 2,100 ATMs worldwide, the US grand jury Tuesday announced indictments against a group of eight individuals involved in the theft.

The hackers managed to circumvent encryption technologies used for the protection of customer data on Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) payroll debit cards, and within less than 12 hours increased the limits on the hacked accounts; thereby carrying out the $9 million theft.

The 16-count indictment filed Tuesday in Atlanta accuses the eight individuals of a variety of fraud and conspiracy charges, including computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy.

While the four kingpins - 28-year-old Viktor Pleshchuk St. Petersburg, Russia; 25-year-old Sergei Tsurikov of Tallinn, Estonia; 28-year-old Oleg Covelin of Chisinau, Moldova; and an unnamed individual - face all the mentioned charges; the remaining four - 31-year-olds Igor Grudijev and Ronald Tsoi; 20-year-old Evelin Tsoi; and 33-year-old Mihhail Jevgenov; all of Tallinn, Estonia - were indicted on charges of access device fraud.

Along with the forfeiture of the stolen amount, the four ringleaders might also have to pay additional fines of up to $3.5 million; and serve a two-year sentence. Commenting on the case, acting US Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said: "This investigation has broken the back of one of the most sophisticated computer hacking rings in the world!"