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The Almighty Buck Crime EU

Europe's Crooks Keep Blowing up ATMs (cnn.com) 39

Posted by EditorDavid from the where-the-money-is dept.
"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.

Europe's Crooks Keep Blowing up ATMs More | Reply

Europe's Crooks Keep Blowing up ATMs

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  • Wait, what? (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @03:14PM (#64898031)

    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.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        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.

    • 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: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      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

      • 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.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        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: (Score:3)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Probably because the ATMs were equipped with ink cartridges invalidating the money.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          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.

  • 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.

    • 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).

    • they have dye packs (but not glue packs since they are illegal in Germany), so these criminals looks to have found some way around the dye packs.

    • 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

    • 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.

      • 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

  • Right across the street from where she often gets lunch. She says there were lots of police there, guys in hazmat suits, and that the area had been cordoned off. Explosion happened in the middle of the night. Not sure if they eventually apprehended the culprits. I wonder if the culprits were native Germans or migrants.
  • As clever as some of German ingenuity is, that they havnt found a way to deter theft by employing countermeasures to make the currency worthless with dye from machine tampering, serial numbers on the currency, and more electronic surveilance in and around these machines. Sounds like the theives might have some knowledge on the inner workings of these machines and/or specialty in explosives ordinance pointing to ex-military or law enforcement.

    • Re:Surprised (Score:4, Interesting)

      by F.Ultra ( 1673484 ) on Sunday October 27, 2024 @03:38PM (#64898063)
      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.

      • 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.

    • 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),

  • 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 car

  • those were probably designed by Israel

    (lol because they explode lmao, get it?)

  • 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.

    • 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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