STRATEGIC PARTNERS
Thieves pilfering an ATM find it's tough to be inconspicuous when your getaway vehicle is a stolen front-end loader. by Ann All, editor
February 14, 2000
It's tough to be stealthy when you're pilfering an ATM. Thieves who used a stolen front-end loader to rip a machine out of the ground at Weber Credit Union in Ogden, Utah, found that out the hard way. Jack Creager, the credit union's executive vice president, said the "commotion" raised by the robbers attracted the attention of several locals, who began following the front-end loader as it pushed the ATM down the street. "They were pushing this two-ton ATM down the road. I don't think that's a quiet operation," Creager said. Apparently realizing they were being followed, the thieves abandoned the backhoe and the ATM behind an elementary school. The ATM was "totaled," Creager said, but the vault remained intact. Even without the assistance of alert citizens, police probably could have located the ATM, Creager added. "They pushed it at least five blocks. It left a trail on the asphalt the entire way." The machine was taken from a new branch. "We've only been in this building about a year," Creager said. "When they told me the ATM was gone, I didn't believe it until I got down here and saw the empty hole in the ground." The thieves remain at large. Unbelievably enough, this wasn't the first time a piece of construction equipment was used to perpetrate an ATM crime. The Las Vegas Sun earlier reported on a similar story in which a man used a front-end-loader to plow through a kiosk at the Nevada Federal Credit Union in an apparent attempt to get at the ATM inside. The man broke off three reinforced barrier pipes, the Sun reported, but he did not get into the ATM. After being spotted by witnesses, the man drove off in the front-end loader. Police later recovered the machine, but the burglar remains at large, according to the Sun.
