A prolific foreign hacker behind cyberattacks that netted an estimated $55 million is facing sentencing by a U.S. judge in a conviction considered an unusual win for law enforcement officials who have identified hundreds of others like him but failed to put them in handcuffs.

Ercan Fındıkoğlu, a Turkish national who used to work as a bartender in a popular Turkish resort before he became involved in hacking, had gone to great lengths to avoid capture by the U.S. Secret Service, both by obscuring his cyber fingerprints but also by avoiding the reach of American law, according to court papers. He advised one co-conspirator at one point to not "go to usa. U will get arrested," the papers said.

It wasn't until Fındıkoğlu made an ill-advised trip to Germany in December 2013 that he was arrested at the request of U.S. authorities and, after losing a court challenge, was eventually extradited.

"They know their safe havens and some are more challenging to get to," said Robert Sica, who retired last year as the special agent in charge of the Secret Service's New York field office. "Inevitably they make a mistake."

According to prosecutors, Fındıkoğlu masterminded three complex, global financial crimes by hacking into different credit card processors, eliminating the limits on prepaid cards then sending PIN information and access codes to teams of so-called "cashers" who within hours withdrew thousands of dollars in cash from automated teller machines.

In one December 2012 hack, they say, 5,000 cashers in 20 countries withdrew a total of $5 million - including $400,000 in 700 transactions from 140 New York ATMs in just two-and-a-half-hours, according to court papers.

A percentage of the stolen cash was then kicked back to Fındıkoğlu via wire transfers and deliveries to co-conspirators in Turkey, Romania and Ukraine, prosecutors charge.