News

For ATM thief, a very poor rate of return

November 21, 2013

The Boise, Idaho, crook who managed to steal an ATM — lock, stock and barrel — from the Like Nu Car Wash must have thought he'd really pulled off the Big Haul. But the haul consisted of little more than the ATM in the bed of his truck.

At around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, police responded to an alarm at the car wash, where a witness reported seeing a pickup truck speeding away from the scene.

But Tom Durrant, the deployer who installed and maintained the machine, told local news station KBOI that the safe contained no more than $30. And if the thief had blow torch he'd need to cut open the safe, he probably would incinerate the three $10 notes in the process.

But burned to a crisp or like-new crisp, those three bills could cost 30 years in prison, Durrant said.

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