The number of explosive attacks on ATMs has reached a new high in North Rhine-Westphalia. More than 180 blasts were counted in 2022.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - The number of explosive attacks on ATMs has reached a new high in North Rhine-Westphalia. With 182 attacks, a few hours before the end of 2022 on Saturday, it was 31 acts above the level of the previous year, when 151 cases were registered, as the NRW State Criminal Police Office announced at the request of the German Press Agency. This corresponds to an increase of around 20 percent.
In the previous record year 2020, 176 ATM demolitions were registered. For the first half of 2022 alone, the damage caused by the attacks was estimated at almost eleven million euros.
According to earlier information from the NRW Ministry of the Interior, a scene of 400 to 500 people from the metropolitan areas of Utrecht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam is behind a large part of the crimes that could be cleared up. The suspects are mostly men between the ages of 18 and 40.
Another ATM in Geldern was blown up early on New Year's Eve. In Nettetal, the police had previously arrested two suspects after an ATM attack and secured a bag of money. The two suspects are 18 and 24 years old.
The police recommends that the financial institutions keep the machines locked at night, install fogging systems and prepare the cash amounts in the machines in such a way that they are dyed and glued in the event of an explosion.
The deeds had become even more dangerous because the gangsters were increasingly using explosives instead of gas to crack the increasingly secure machines, said NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) in the spring. It was "pure luck" that no one had died in an explosion or in a breakneck pursuit.
All around 10,000 ATMs in NRW have now been subjected to a risk assessment. Not only an improvement in security measures, but also the dismantling of machines at particularly endangered locations should no longer be taboo.
