News

Crooks 'scope out' ATMs. Literally.

July 2, 2012

Police in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur have become convinced that gangs of thieves have been stealing surgical endoscopes and inserting them into ATMs to see how much money they contain.

According to an article in New Straits Times, authorities believe that two different gangs from South America are working in tandem — one stealing the medical equipment and the other robbing the ATMs.

Before making the connection between the two gangs, police were stumped by the recent theft of endoscopes — instruments used to examine the interior of the body — from three Malaysian hospitals. The equipment would not be easy to dispose of on the black market, the Times article said.

However police are now employing the cooperating gangs theory as they investigate a recent ATM robbery believed to have been carried out by five South Americans. "An ATM machine can have between RM100,000 ($31,600) and RM500,000 ($158,053), depending on its location and the volume of transactions," a source told the times. "Police have not ruled out the possibility that the endoscopes had been used to check the interior of the ATM."

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