German news. Police arrest thirteen members of a Dutch gang in Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, responsible for blowing up ATM machines in Germany.
The gang has been connected to several attacks with explosives on ATM machines between March 2021 and May 2022 in western and central Germany, making away with an estimated amount of 1.6 million euros and in the process causing four million in damages wrote Upex.
“Law enforcement is increasingly concerned about the increasingly heavier explosives that criminals are using to gain access to the cash machines’ content,” the European Union Agency for Police Cooperation (Europol), said in a statement.
“Such explosions are putting at risk the lives of local residents and bystanders: the surrounding buildings can collapse, or fragments of the explosion hit passers-by,” Europol added.
Some of the culprits fled on powerful vehicles, causing serious risk to the public with speeds over 250 kilometres (155 miles) per hour. Dutch police arrested three members of a gang last month linked to a chain of similar attacks, where they made away with almost one million euros.
READ MORE: Germany launches man hunt for ATM robbers
September last year, Dutch and German authorities dismantled a gang that created and sold tutorials on how to blow up ATMs machines.
Germany has in the recent years seen a rise of robberies with explosives. We wrote about it here: ATMs in Germany, record number of robberies in 2020