BATON ROUGE - East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore said deputies and troopers prevented what could've been a multi-million dollar theft from an ATM jackpotting scheme that resulted in the arrest of seven Venezuelan nationals.

Moore said while he did not have the exact figures on the potential loss from the jackpotting scheme, he said "the bank is the limit" in terms of what could've been stolen. Jackpotting is where criminals hack ATMs and drain the cash. 

The seven were arrested after officials saw them manipulate an ATM device at Essential Credit Union in Baton Rouge. The group is based out of Houston and has ties to criminal organizations in Venezuela, Mexico and Spain, arrest documents say. Officials said they were linked to six ATM attacks in the greater Houston area and one in Tennessee.

According to Moore, the suspects were allegedly transnational with several "in line for deportation as they are not here legally."

"Several of them have already been charged in another federal court in another state, the majority of them have been, so I want to take a look at what we have here, because this seems to be something going on around the country amongst these people and other groups," Moore said. "I want to make sure I get them charged, if appropriate, here and this could amount to a lot of money being stolen from a lot of people via one ATM."

The district attorney said the group scopes out the machines to check for police presence and to see where the cameras are before putting a device in the machine, allowing them to take information out of the ATM from another country using computer software.

"The money goes to a separate account; oftentimes, the money comes out in cash, and if you can catch them quick enough, you can find them with the cash," Moore said. "I'm not sure that was the case here, but they are sophisticated, they have software that they use, and this is a problem."

Moore said he was hoping to file something as soon as possible to get the suspects served before they bond out of jail or go elsewhere. The seven arrested are named below:

- Mauro Brieno-Caldera
- Wildrian Caceres-Bautista
- Wester Dugarte-Goicochea
- Alexis Gonzalez-Rodriguez
- Jeanmar Milla-Parrar 
- Giovanny Yance
- Henry Gonzalez-Guitterez