Europol Announces Takedown of Gang Behind ATM Attacks
Germans still largely favor cash over electronic payments, so ATMs are plentiful and well stocked. This makes them attractive targets for thieves, including some who started using explosives to crack open money cartridges in ATMs and steal currency.
In 2022, 496 ATMs were blown up in cash-grab heists, Business Insider reported. The average raid could yield up to 100,000 euros, totaling 30 million euros stolen via ATM bombings in 2022, up 53 percent from 2021. By mid-2023, thieves were blowing up ATMs in Germany at a rate of more than one a day.
Perpetrators have increasingly used solid explosives—mainly originating from fireworks—to blow up ATMs and then speed away from the scene, causing harm to buildings and nearby residents.
“The criminals, who are often based in the Netherlands, take extreme risks and act unscrupulously, both at the crime scene and when escaping in high-powered vehicles,” according to Europol.
The culprits themselves are sometimes hurt in the explosion, and thieves often carry fuel cannisters in their getaway cars for refueling during their escape, which discourages police from shooting at the vehicles lest they explode, Business Insider said.
Investigators have been working to track down the thieves involved in these violent cash machine attacks, and earlier this week, a group of Dutch, French, and German police forces arrested three alleged members of a violent criminal network involved in the attacks. The individuals allegedly looted millions of euros and caused a similar amount of property damage from 2022 to 2024.
“As part of an action day conducted in several locations across the Netherlands, France, and Germany, law enforcement also searched car rental companies whose vehicles had been used to flee crime scenes,” Europol explained. “This particular criminal network was one of the first to use locations in France as hideaway spots and rely on getaway cars rented from a French rental company. These raids led to extensive evidence being secured, thus facilitating the investigations into wider members, logisticians, and supporters of the arrested suspects.”
Although many of the suspected criminals in the attacks are Dutch, the frequency of ATM attacks is falling in The Netherlands, partly due to security measures. Many Dutch ATMs have tamper-sensitive devices that glue blocks of cash together, making them unusable, Reuters reported in 2023.
“So Dutch cash machine raiders are crossing the border and, German police estimate, have carried out between 70 percent to 80 percent of attacks in Germany since 2018,” the article said. “Dutch police suspect around 500 men are responsible, working in ever-evolving groups as new recruits replace those who get caught.”
Read more about ATM crime, including how banks in the United States are protecting technicians from attack, in Security Management’s September coverage here.
Following an uptick in physical and logical attacks on ATMs, security practitioners and the vendor community are hardening machines against assault. https://t.co/pRe2Ulko92
— Security Management (@SecMgmtMag) September 20, 2024
