Düsseldorf.
NRW has counted 47 attacks on ATMs since the beginning of the year. But she also reports a success: There have already been 17 arrests of suspected perpetrators.
The number of investigation successes against ATM bombers has increased. This year, 17 suspects had already been arrested by the beginning of March, the NRW State Criminal Police Office in Düsseldorf said on request. In the whole of last year there were 23.
In view of the frequent explosive attacks on ATMs, ATMs classified as particularly at risk are now “intensively patrolled” by the police in North Rhine-Westphalia at night, it said.
To date, 47 explosive attacks on ATMs in NRW since the beginning of the year
The number of explosive attacks reached a new record of 182 in NRW last year. This year, at the end of the first quarter at the end of March, it was 47, slightly below the level of the previous year, when 53 offenses had already been registered in the same period.
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The police announced that they would intensify international exchanges and exchanges with the banking industry in order to get the phenomenon under control. There are more than 10,000 ATMs in North Rhine-Westphalia.
ATM bomber: damage in the tens of millions
For the first half of 2022 alone, the damage caused by the attacks was estimated at almost eleven million euros. The police did not provide any information on the damage this year. A scene of 400 to 500 people from the metropolitan areas of Utrecht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, also known as the “Audi gang”, is said to be behind most of the crimes.
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The police recommends that the financial institutions keep the machines locked at night, install fogging systems and prepare the cash amounts in the machines in such a way that they are dyed and glued in the event of an explosion.
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The deeds have become even more dangerous since the gangsters are increasingly using explosives instead of gas to crack the ever better secured machines. The dismantling of machines at particularly endangered locations should no longer be taboo. (dpa)
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