An important sentence was left out of the summary, which explained that customs mistook the instruments for pieces of bamboo.

Is bamboo allowed to be imported to the US?

In general, bamboo that is not thoroughly dried and is therefore still capable of propagation is prohibited entry into the United States.

Bamboo that is thoroughly dried and split or cut lengthwise (rendering it incapable of propagation) will be inspected upon entry and released.

Unsplit dried bamboo canes/stakes/poles also are allowed entry into the United States after inspection: however, if the bamboo canes/stakes/poles are intended for garden or nursery use, the shipment must be fumigated (T404-d treatment extended to 24 hours) upon arrival at the U.S. port of entry.

Bamboo furniture, bamboo cloth, and other manufactured products made of bamboo do not require fumigation and will be released upon inspection.

For more information on Bamboo products, see Table 3-22 in the APHIS Miscellaneous and Processed Products Manual.

If you have further questions regarding requirements for importing agricultural products, please contact the USDA/APHIS Customer Support Center at (301) 851-2046.

What about any detail at all about this? What "weak" encryption do they use? How was it broken? What was the value of the fraud? Can these cards be used for anything else, or cashed out, or does this fraud require very extensive MARTA ridership?

Seven people have been charged with fairly serious crimes, but I can't see the value of the fraud being more than a few hundred or few thousand dollars. It's like counterfeiting $1 bills, what's the point?

MARTA says the thieves spent $1 to buy the Breeze card, then reprogrammed the data on it to turn it into a 30-day pass. They then sold it to riders for $40, a deep discount of the real price of $96. That meant the thieves got to pocket $39, and the buyers got a cheap ride.

MARTA police chief Wanda Dunham says the cards were sold at MARTA stations and on Craigslist. But it was a suspicious buyer who purchased one at an area mall that contacted police. "He knew that wasn't the right fare so he called us, asked us to check into it," said Dunham.

As they investigated, the agency's Revenue Department noticed in November, a large number of cards were sold at its Chamblee and Lenox stations for only a dollar. Police started reviewing surveillance video to create a list of suspects.

MARTA won't say how many counterfeit cards the group sold, but says during the arrests it confiscated 400 fraudulent cards. Had the thieves sold them, their $400 initial investment, would have earned them $16,000.

MARTA says it's never had something like this happen before, but security expert Gregory Evans says MARTA needs to act fast, if wants to keep it from happening again. He says the hackers likely got away with their scheme using a simple card writer that costs just a few hundred dollars. "The crazy part, the scary part about this? MARTA would have never known if some had not gone back and told them what was happening. That's it," said Evans. Evans says the data on the card could be encrypted and an alert built into their software system. "If I go to use this card somewhere and all the sudden there's $100 on this card, their system should have caught that and said hold up," Evans said.

Delta, to their PR benefit, have swallowed the losses, and the lucky customers have shared their delight via social media

RSA is publicly traded, is it not? Reuters is giving them a full weekend to come up with a PR response before the markets open on Monday.