Online collective Anonymous has teamed up with hacker group TeaMp0isoN on its latest campaign, OpRobinHood; using stolen credit card details to "donate" to the "99%".
In a statement claiming to be from the pair, the campaign is presented as an extension of the Occupy movement that will "turn the tables on the banks".
"Operation Robin Hood is going to return the money to those who have been cheated by our system and most importantly to those hurt by our banks. Operation Robin Hood will take credit cards and donate to the 99% as well as various charities around the globe."
The groups justify the theft from customers by reasoning that "the banks will be forced to reimburse the people there [sic] money back".
The statement claims that OpRobinHood has already seen the hackers steal card details from Chase, Bank of America, and CitiBank and use the information to donate thousands of dollars to protests, the homeless and charities.
In May hackers breached Citi's systems and used the stolen data to loot around $2.7 million from the accounts of 3400 customers. However, there is no evidence that this was related to OpRobinHood.
The groups are urging people to move their accounts to credit unions, boasting: "We are going to show you banks are not safe and take our money back. We are going to hit the true evil while not harming theirs customers and helping others."
Anonymous' last major operation against a financial institution proved a false alarm. Having initially threatened to 'erase' the New York Stock Exchange from the Internet in support of the Occupy Wall Street protests, it later claimed to be just running a media scare tactic.