Europe's Crooks Keep Blowing up ATMs (cnn.com) 98
"In the early hours of Thursday, March 23, 2023, residents in the German town of Kronberg were woken from their sleep by several explosions," reports CNN .
"Criminals had blown up an ATM located below a block of flats in the town center..." According to local media reports, witnesses saw people dressed in dark clothing fleeing in a black car towards a nearby highway. During the heist, thieves stole 130,000 euros in cash. They also caused an estimated half a million euros worth of collateral damage, according to a report by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA.
Rather than staging dramatic and risky bank robberies, criminal groups in Europe have been targeting ATMs as an easier and more low-key target. In Germany — Europe's largest economy — thieves have been blowing up ATMs at a rate of more than one per day in recent years. In a country where cash is still a prevalent payment method, the thefts can prove incredibly lucrative, with criminals pocketing hundreds of thousands of euros in one attack.
Europol has been cracking down on the robberies, carrying out large cross-border operations aimed at taking down the highly-organized criminal gangs behind them. Earlier this month, authorities from Germany, France and the Netherlands arrested three members of a criminal network who have been carrying out attacks on cash machines using explosives, Europol said in a statement. Since 2022, the detainees are believed to have looted millions of euros and run up a similar amount in property damage, from 2022 to 2024, Europol said...
Unlike its European neighbors, who largely transitioned away from cash payments due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cash still plays a significant role in Germany. One half of all transactions in 2023 were made using banknotes and coins, according to Bundesbank. Germans have a cultural attachment to cash, traditionally viewing it as a safe method of payment. Some say it allows a greater level of privacy, and gives them more control over their expenses.
"Criminals had blown up an ATM located below a block of flats in the town center..." According to local media reports, witnesses saw people dressed in dark clothing fleeing in a black car towards a nearby highway. During the heist, thieves stole 130,000 euros in cash. They also caused an estimated half a million euros worth of collateral damage, according to a report by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA.
Rather than staging dramatic and risky bank robberies, criminal groups in Europe have been targeting ATMs as an easier and more low-key target. In Germany — Europe's largest economy — thieves have been blowing up ATMs at a rate of more than one per day in recent years. In a country where cash is still a prevalent payment method, the thefts can prove incredibly lucrative, with criminals pocketing hundreds of thousands of euros in one attack.
Europol has been cracking down on the robberies, carrying out large cross-border operations aimed at taking down the highly-organized criminal gangs behind them. Earlier this month, authorities from Germany, France and the Netherlands arrested three members of a criminal network who have been carrying out attacks on cash machines using explosives, Europol said in a statement. Since 2022, the detainees are believed to have looted millions of euros and run up a similar amount in property damage, from 2022 to 2024, Europol said...
Unlike its European neighbors, who largely transitioned away from cash payments due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cash still plays a significant role in Germany. One half of all transactions in 2023 were made using banknotes and coins, according to Bundesbank. Germans have a cultural attachment to cash, traditionally viewing it as a safe method of payment. Some say it allows a greater level of privacy, and gives them more control over their expenses.
Wait, what? (Score:3)
Hundreds of thousands of euros per ATM?
Well... just looked it up and yep, the full-size machines might average 500k in them. That's 10 years of average income in Germany, and "blow open the ATM and grab the cash cartridges" sounds like something a single criminal with some explosives skill could handle.
Having learned that, I'm not surprised they get blown open, but I'm surprised it's one per day. You blow one up, you're set for a decade with no further risk. There must be a lot of criminals in the 'blow up an ATM' game or they must be pretty damn greedy and enjoy risk.
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You blow one up, you're set for a decade with no further risk.
That's not how organized crime works. The people doing the work get their cut. But the people at the top of the criminal organization need a lot of cash flow to support their lifestyle.
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You blow one up, you're set for a decade with no further risk.
That's not how organized crime works. The people doing the work get their cut.
Like the fees on credit cards are the bank's cut from not using cash.
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Ya' think VISA might behind all this to get Germans to go cashless?
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Ya' think VISA might behind all this to get Germans to go cashless?
Let's just gaslight ourselves and call it a conspiracy theory so we can feel safe in our skepticism.
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...gaslight ourselves and call it a conspiracy theory so we can feel safe in our skepticism
The world's theme since 2019
Re: Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
500k euros might help you for a few years but a decade? That's living with 50k a year for 10y. While it is true that many folks (most?) make less than 50k per year in Europe I would not call that the high life. I would expect the criminals to do this at least once a year to life a very comfortable life.
One problem with criminal money is that it is then more difficult to invest into legit businesses so you can live off your, now, legal assets, which mean you are in a loop to get more stolen cash.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
500k Euros in Bitcoin is probably enough to retire off of.
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The English grammar rules changed a few decades ago (seriously) - now a preposition is something it's perfectly fine to end a sentence with.
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It has always been acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition. Usage dictates correctness, not British grammarians.
Furthermore, their convoluted explanations for the rule don't make sense. Some use a weird misunderstanding of Latin, others simply claim it sounds low-class. British aristocrats have a long history of intentionally mangling the language to distinguish themselves from the poor.
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
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"enough to retire off of."
What's that in English please?
on.
"enough to retire on". "off of" is an American thing. They eat off of plates too, apparently.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
Do Brits eat on plates? That's such a strange turn of phrase...
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Yes, Americans eat off of a plate. In this way, "off of" means "from", not "on".
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500k euros might help you for a few years but a decade? That's living with 50k a year for 10y. While it is true that many folks (most?) make less than 50k per year in Europe I would not call that the high life. I would expect the criminals to do this at least once a year to life a very comfortable life.
One problem with criminal money is that it is then more difficult to invest into legit businesses so you can live off your, now, legal assets, which mean you are in a loop to get more stolen cash.
EUR 500K would last you quite a while in some parts of the EU. However I'd wager this kind of thing is a bit more organised. It's not trivial to get that kind of explosive in the EU, especially Germany. They aren't simply strapping some TNT to a cashpoint like Wile E Coyote, they'll likely be using specialised demolitions charges to avoid destroying the bank notes (so police will be looking for a company that's had some explosives misplaced recently). If it's organised, the sods doing the actual work will b
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It has a pretty obvious solution. Stop having so many ATM's.
In the US and Canada bank ATM's are usually attached to the Bank or a convenience store (Eg 7-11) you can't rip them out of the building because they're usually fixed to the concrete walls. You'd have to do a lot of property damage just to get to the ATM.
Third party ATM's (not owned by banks or credit unions) are usually temporary and not mounted to walls, they're free standing, and if someone wanted to steal one, a truck and a chain would probably
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Third party ATM's (not owned by banks or credit unions) are usually temporary and not mounted to walls
It's almost like they were made to be yanked out and dragged away, although they have a lot less cash in them, usually only around $5k or so. Worth it for some people perhaps but seems like a losing bet to me.
And you're right about US bank ATMs; in the US you'd have to blow out half of the building to get to the ATM cash boxes and whatnot.
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Nowadays, in the US there's typically not a lot of need to use an ATM and pay the banks' ridiculous fees - if you want cash, you can ask for it when you're checking out at the grocery store.
Even the self-checkout stations ask if you want cash back.
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Most of the ATMs that banks use are not just embedded in the concrete, but open in two ways. If you need to service the electronics, they open from the front where the customers interact with the machine.
But if you want to add cash to the machine, they open from the rear, from inside the bank and behind what is basically a safe embedded in the concrete. Inside is all the cash
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Around where I live blowing up ATMs was something that happened 30 years ago.
Today there are few left and basically everywhere you pay with a card.
In addition to that - the ATMs were pretty quickly equipped with ink cartridges making the cash in the machine unusable.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
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Then go to a normal bank and not a "travel bank" ATM with a brand sign from your home country.
You want to tell me if I take 1k EURO I have to pay 300RURO in fee? That is most likely not even legal.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
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I would think blowing one up equates to "a lot of property damage" ;)
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
There were a spate of these in Australia around 2008 or 2009. They didn't use explosives like C4 etc., they used a propane cylinder with a hose to get the gas into the ATM. I don't know why they stopped, but you rarely hear about them any more. Maybe the crooks all moved to Germany.
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Probably because the ATMs were equipped with ink cartridges invalidating the money.
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The "ATM bomb bandits" seem to be able to work around those. They target ATMs where an explosion inside the ATM doesn't cause the dye pack to ruin the banknotes. I don't think all the ATMs in question were upgraded that quickly in Australia, and evidently they're still widespread in Germany.
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They could have also gone to having much less cash in the machines making them less valuable as a target. Or, they could have engineered them where blowing up the machines has a very high likelihood of also incinerating the cash. Or, they upgraded all their systems to have dye packs that are more hair triggered.
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It is only a small subset of ATMs that can be "harvested" by being blown up.
The majourity has the cash stored one or two stories below the ground.
And I guess only those are the ones that indeed have such a huge amount of money in them.
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I'd have thought spending the money would have been difficult. Do they not record the serial numbers of the notes in those machines? You would have thought it wouldn't be too difficult for the counting machine to optically scan the serial number as it processes each note.
I heard they started putting ink cartridges in the boxes too, so if you break them open the money is ruined.
These criminals must have some tricks to avoid all this. Maybe they can open the boxes safely, and have a way to launder the money.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:1)
Glue or dye-packs? (Score:3)
So they don't have these packs in German ATM's??
Kinda stupid if you ask me, I guess they skimped on security features because it costs a bit of extra money.
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On the assumption you meant "dye packs" then... seems like a good idea.
Mount a dye pack next to your cash cartridges, set to go off if it experiences a shock above a certain level (like, say, an explosive charge strong enough to pop the machine open).
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Guessing what a "glue pack" is from context....but why would such a thing ever be illegal?
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Cash in ATMs is obviously going to be stored in a very neat, tight, orderly fashion. I'd bet that dye packs often only often spoil the bills exposed which are on top. With 500k in cash, that may leave 400-495k still usable.
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Some years ago this was happening in my place. The gang selected the ATMs based on brand and model. Either the older models that don't have the dye, or a model where the dye pack is somehow disabled by the explosion rather than triggered. They were using propane gas, which explodes from inside the machine. I guess this is part of the mechanism of how/why it works to disable the dye system on some models.
Probably it fails most of the time (otherwise they would make 1 big heist and enjoy the money for some ye
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Or they just pay off the ATM techs to disable the dye packs.
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Most ATMs in germany are by scammers such as Euronet. I am not entirely sure a criminal enterprise like that would care to prevent crime by destroying money.
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Sorry but that's not even close to true. Euronet in all of Europe has less ATMs than Sparkassen alone has in Germany, and there are other banks in Germany as well. I'm guessing you've only been a tourist in Germany? If that's the case you may only see Euronet since they put them at all tourist traps (e.g. the only ATMs you find on the Wiessen in Munich during Oktoberfest is Euronet, and you may not even know that you need to go *into* most banks to use an ATM - and they are in abundance (including directly
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I live in Berlin. There are 2 or 3 Euronet ATMs on every street, and one in every other kiosk. The banks are far fewer, and far between.
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2 or 3 Euronet ATMs on every street in Berlin would mean at least 19000 Euronet ATMs in Berlin alone. Which would be more than Euronet has worldwide.
Exposion occurred a block from where my wife works (Score:1)
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Odds are they were very temporary migrants from the Netherlands.
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I wonder if they prefer their currywurst with fries or spaghetti.
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I wonder if the culprits were native Germans or migrants
From the article:
Often based in the Netherlands,
Two of the three criminals were caught at a rest stop, but the 30-year-old Dutch driver escaped and continued to drive against the traffic at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, until colliding head-on with a van.
has also led Dutch criminals to look further afield, according to Reuters, citing Dutch police.
Or, as Michael Caine once said [azquotes.com].
Surprised (Score:2)
Re:Surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Create the exception already. (Score:1)
They have all of that in the German ATM:s so these criminals have found some way around them. The single thing the German ATM:s are lacking are the glue system that destroys cash when the machine detects tampering and this is missing due to it being illegal in Germany to destroy currency.
The single thing that Germans are lacking, is a justified exception to the destruction of currency.
It would be peanuts for one of their Mints/Reserves to replace the physical currency taken in this manner by supporting already existing and effective technology (glue or dye packs). The ATM companies could partner with banks/Mints/Reserves and offer insurance policies that would enable the insuring and replacement of both the ATM and the cash contents.
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The single thing that Germans are lacking, is a justified exception to the destruction of currency.
NEIN! Zer are RULEZ!
Okay slightly insulting comment aside, this is a serious problem in Germany full stop. The insane adherence to rules is one of the large problems that keeps Germany inefficient. The system only works when everything runs well, as soon as you hit an edge case the system breaks down and it becomes a nightmare to get it back on track. Not just government / legislative mind you, this kind of bureaucracy finds its way into private industry and even home life over there. It's a cultural hinder
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Unfortunately most of the ATMs in germany are run and owned by an American ATM scammer called Euronet. They want them as cheap as possible, so they can rip off as many tourists as possible (that is how they get to stick around, by only scamming tourists),
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That is wrong. Every single bank brand has more ATMs than Euronet.
Only idiots would use a tourist trap ATM. We all have bank cards from our bank, and many banks team together and have their "cash pools", so going to another ATM costs nothing.
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Sure, you can use the banks if know where they are, which locals do. That doesnt' mean there aren't Euronet trash machines everywhere a tourist might ever wander past. Not even all locals know they are bad. If they have one of the modern internet bank credit or debit cards, they usually get a couple of free withdrawels a months, and they can use those even on the tourist trap ATMs.
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Perhaps ATMs need to be upgraded such that each and every single bill put into them has its serial number scanned when going in, and marked as disbursed when going out. That way, no dye packs or alarm/anti-theft systems are needed at all. If a bill ever shows up in circulation that wasn't recorded as going out of an ATM or bank by legitimate means, it's been stolen. We have more than enough compute power and image/OCR tech to achieve such a tracking system.
Or course, this will reduce the anonymity of cash s
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Sounds like the end of the privacy of cash payments.
Couldn't agree more. (Score:3)
Some say it allows a greater level of privacy, and gives them more control over their expenses.
Both of those are very valid points. Minus phone geopositioning and face recognition cameras, I can be pretty sure that when I buy my porn with cash, nobody will know it was me. And the controlling of expenses is effective for most people, especially if you've been brought up that way. I used to trade the gift cards my kids received for birthday 80 cents on the dollar with cash for 2 reasons: it game them the freedom of use the cash at any location instead of being tied into a specific company's gift card and also it taught them the that money wasn't finite and when the papers and coins they had in their pocket was gone, it was gone. With papers and coins in their pocket, they could better gauge their future spending opportunities.
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Too true.
Financial wizards like Dave Ramsey sprook cutting up all your cards (not just credit cards, but also debit cards) as a first step to getting your money under control. This makes use of the psychological effects of spending: spending with cards is just numbers on a screen, but spending with cash make you stop and think, "Do I actually need this? Is it actually worth the money I'm handing over?"
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Yes, and many others suggest putting the weekly budgeted amounts into little glass containers. So when you're out sh
Re: Couldn't agree more. (Score:2)
The dude wants people to pay off their 2.5% tax-advantaged mortgages rather than invest at far better rates. Jesus, you can beat that after taxes on 3-month CDs.
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I can be pretty sure that when I buy my porn with cash, nobody will know it was me.
Your problem is relying on someone not knowing, rather than relying on making sure they can't do anything with that information. That's one of the big issues in the USA, as soon as someone knows something about you all bets are off. That information can be on sold to anyone or used against you without repercussions. On the flip side in Europe I don't care fi someone knows what porn I buy because I know with certainty if they try to use it against me, or even tell someone else about it I'm in for a massive p
is real (Score:2)
(lol because they explode lmao, get it?)
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Have you looked at the "dutch citizens" who comprise most these gangs?
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The Dutch are dammed, I have photos of dams to prove it.
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Time for the EU to make an app like WeChat, and move to a cashless society?
*EPI has entered the chat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Time for the EU to make an app like WeChat,
And here in Southern Europe, it is also moving towards cashless. Payments are wireless with a card (or equivalently a mobile phone with support for NFC), or scanning a QR code inside a national payment app.
The question here is it's Germany. They are not in a hurry to modernize and it's not only about cash payment. A lot of administrative things are still done in paper.
But it's not like crime disappears without cash. I see in the news that drug dealers now accept card payments.
It's getting fixed already ... (Score:3)
In my country it was the central bank which stopped technical solutions (blowing pain/glue through the money drawer) for a long time before someone with authority said "we're not listening to you any more" and it finally got fixed.
Something similar is now happening in German, they are using glue.
crook implosion (Score:2)
priceless that the solution is destroying the goods so they can't be stolen, then just replace the whole installation and fill it up again. when sustaining losses of over half a million daily is just a slight bump in operating costs, a nuisance, you're really at the top of the crook chain. ofc the "authorities" of three countries will work for you, no question.
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Germany and Austria (Score:2)
full of people with multiple forms of paranoia: card or electronic payments will make the deep state know how much milk they bought, vaccines are dangerous and mRNA vaccines are meant to put microchips into their blood, the sky is being sprayed with chemicals, and to protect themselves from all those evils they vote for the fascists again.
Pretty awful to be there among all those complete and utter dimwits.
This should be amusing (Score:2)
I mean it's already illegal to steal an ATM and the money within.
It's already illegal to manufacture, possess and use explosive devices.
What's the plan here ?
Add another law that these people are going to ignore ?
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Would be far more sensible to just surround the ATM in those same bags of ink that they put in the bank bags so if they are pierced (say, by an explosion) they just fire indelible ink all over the money, rendering it useless.
European crooks stealing BitCoin (Score:1)
Also European thieves are blowing up their own laptops because they think all that bitcoin is in there somewhere and if they can just get into it they'll be RICH beyond their WILDEST dreams.
Next up they'll be blowing up ATMs to get $5-$6.50 becasue "ATM's gotz to haz moneyz."
Silly European thieves. They WANT to succeed... but... on the small side of the pond... they are small playaz in a child's sandbox.
Misconception (Score:1)
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Cash preference plays a role. It makes no sense to have that much money in a single ATM. If an ATM had 50k EUR, rather than 500k, it'd be way, way less enticing for such criminals. So I imagine them having that much money in them is a confluence of two factors: people using them a lot, so they must have a lot of money available for withdrawals, and banks not wanting to spend money on restoking them daily, but only once every several days.
On a side note, here in Brazil all ATMs (literally 100% of them) have
Bollocks (Score:2)
Other countries have put limits on how much cash can legally be paid per transaction to try to reduce such fraud & evasion, e.g. transactions greater than 1.000€ must be paid via a bank, so that there's a paper trail with people's names on it.
Even with cash, privacy is gone (Score:2)
"Some say it allows a greater level of privacy"
I'd bet money that if they aren't doing it now, banks are or will start scanning and tracking every bill that moves through them by scanning them and storing the SN#s via an automated method. Its not difficult or expensive in today's world. That will greatly reduce privacy and give a much greater (but not perfect) visibility into how money moves. Often, cash is withdrawn, spent at a retailer, then deposited back into the bank. Sure, it can be tendered as change