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| Remember when bank robbers just took the money? |
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| Written by Maryanne Euthalia |
| Friday, 30 July 2010 13:29 |
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Once upon a time, a robber would walk up to a teller, hand over a threatening note, and flee with the contents of the teller's drawer or - in extreme cases - the loot stored in the vault. With the public's increasingly widespread use of ATM machines, some thieves have taken to hanging around the machines and robbing patrons after they withdrew their cash. With the implementation of security cameras and exploding dye packs - not to mention the increase in the number of citizens packing weapons, criminals have chosen a seemingly less risky method: stealing the "bank" itself. Over the last few weeks, there have been several instances in the Atlanta area where thieves have crashed into businesses and made off with entire ATM machines, presumably to take the machines someplace and empty them at the thieves' leisure. The latest of these smash-and-steal robbery attempts - this one unsuccessful - occurred early Friday morning, when someone drove a van into a northeast Atlanta CVS Pharmacy, allegedly to grab the ATM near the front door. Witnesses reported seeing two vans, one of which was apparently the "lookout," as the second crashed into the front door of the business. Whether the would-be thieves thought they had been seen, or they simply couldn't dislodge the ATM from the floor, they fled empty handed, and were not caught. This failed attempt was only the latest in a rash of such incidents, following Thursday's successful theft of an ATM from an IKEA store at Atlantic Station, and two others taken last Saturday, one from a convenience store on Hosea Williams Drive, and one from another CVS on Northside Parkway. On the previous Monday (the 19th), the thieves were more brazen, strolling into a diner on Peachtree Street, shoving their way past stunned diner employees, and wheeling the diner's ATM out the door on a dolly and into a waiting van. And they didn't even leave a tip. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites |
