Frankfurt The blast leaves a picture of devastation. The ATM on the premises of a shopping center in Borken is completely destroyed. Eyewitnesses only watch how the perpetrators jump into a red car after the blast and drive away at high speed. Incidents like the one in Borken before the Pentecost weekend are gradually becoming routine for the investigators.
On average, an ATM somewhere in Germany is blown up or at least attacked almost every night. The number of blasts has even increased this year. By May 30, there had already been 91 attacks on ATMs in North Rhine-Westphalia alone, including blasts and attempted blasts. Borken is not even included in this number.
At the spring interior ministers’ conference, Lower Saxony’s interior minister, Boris Pistorius, announced a few days ago an initiative to combat the ever-increasing number of ATM blasts. The federal states must work more closely together, demanded the SPD politician.
More cooperation between the authorities seems necessary. Because if this continues, there is a risk of more blasting and blasting attempts than ever before in Germany’s largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia alone. In 2020 as a whole, the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) registered the previous record number of 176 crimes, in 2021 there were 150 cases. If 18 attacks continue to occur every month in 2022, as has been the case so far on average, it would be almost 220 by the end of the year.
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The situation is similar in Pistorius’ home country of Lower Saxony: by the beginning of June there had been 33 attacks on ATMs there. In the full year 2021, the previous high, the local LKA recorded 55. On top of that, the stolen sums are increasing. For 2020, the Federal Criminal Police Office estimated the damage from a good 400 attacks to around 17 million euros, in 2019 it was 15 million euros.
Not only are the number and scale of attacks growing, they are also becoming more brutal. Although the perpetrators do not always get the notes from the machines, the force of the explosions is great. They also destroy parts of the buildings where the branches of banks and savings banks are located on the ground floor and often apartments on the upper floors. According to the LKA NRW, in some cases the fire brigade and structural engineers are needed to assess whether there is a risk of collapse for the affected building.
The reason for this: The perpetrators now almost always use solid explosives, known in technical jargon as “explosives” or more concretely as “lightning bang bodies”. Until 2018, they mostly blew up ATMs using gas, which caused less damage.
Brutal demolition, reckless escape
Even when fleeing, the perpetrators, who after the attacks usually race at enormous speed on the motorways in the direction of the Netherlands, behave increasingly ruthlessly. This is illustrated by a current case: after a machine was blown up in Ibbenbüren, Westphalia, at the end of May, the police are now even investigating attempted murder.
According to their own statements, the police blocked a motorway access to the A30 in the direction of Amsterdam with patrol cars after a blast attack. A car, which shortly afterwards approached at high speed, swerved onto a green strip and drove towards a police officer standing there. He was only able to save himself by jumping to the side.
There are particularly many attacks on ATMs in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. The LKA NRW assumes that the majority of the crimes are committed by a criminal scene from the Netherlands, which is several hundred strong. The perpetrators were predominantly from Moroccan-Dutch criminal groups “who live primarily in and around Utrecht, Rotterdam and Amsterdam”.
Risk assessment for each of the 11,000 ATMs in NRW
The banks have long since reacted to the increasing number of cases: they have upgraded their machines, making them more resistant to attacks, for example with so-called explosion mats. The problem: The more the financial institutions protect their ATMs from robberies, the more violent the perpetrators are.
In view of the increase in the number and brutality of the attacks, the police and banks are making a new attempt to take countermeasures. The joint interest group for banks and savings banks, Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (DK), said on request: “The police and banks as well as savings banks are currently trying to carry out a more in-depth risk analysis for individual ATM locations.”
Credit institutions and the police have long exchanged views on how to prevent attacks on ATMs. Among other things, this involves a risk analysis; according to the DK, a nationwide standard grid has been used for this for a good two years.
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In order to combat the explosions in a targeted manner, the NRW Ministry of the Interior set up a special commission (Soko) in May: The aim of the SOKO BEGAS (combating and investigating blasting of automated teller machines) is to analyze the previous investigative, search and prevention approaches and new ones Set standards to address crime in a consistent and efficient manner. BEGAS does not investigate itself, but rather checks “whether what we are doing is good enough, where we can improve, what we need to change,” said Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU).
“So far it has been pure luck that no one has died in a blast or in a chase,” said Reul. “I want to act before there are deaths – that’s also why we’re using the special commission now.”
In February, the police, banks and savings banks had already decided to create a “risk assessment” for each of the 11,000 ATMs in NRW. A significant number of credit institutions have provided the extensive information. “The other institutes are still collecting the data and will deliver them shortly,” the Ministry of the Interior said.
The analysis could result in the access to the machines being better protected and the interior being better monitored. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the dismantling of ATMs in “risk locations” is also conceivable. Hesse also wants to strengthen cooperation between the police and security experts from financial institutions and launched a corresponding initiative in May.
In the Netherlands, on the other hand, the number of attacks has fallen significantly. This is partly due to the fact that there are relatively few ATMs there and far less cash is used. In addition, ATMs are usually switched off at night, and they are often built directly into building walls and, unlike in Germany, are rarely in the anterooms of bank branches.
More: Blasting never ends – banks are about to dismantle endangered ATMs