National Crime Agency officers have made a number of arrests in Belfast and London as part of an investigation into money laundering linked to a cyber-heist on a bank in Malta.

In February 2019 a strain of malware was used to access systems and illegally remove funds of around EUR 13 million from accounts holding bank funds.

A number of accounts were used to receive those funds, one of them was in the UK and was held in Belfast. Around £800,000 was transferred.

In the following hours a number of card payments and cash withdrawals totalling £340,000 were made from the account before a block could be put on th...