Dusseldorf 50,000 euros in a few minutes – that’s how much loot criminals make on average by blowing up ATMs in Germany. The perpetrators stole almost 20 million euros with such explosions in 2021 – and the number of cases is increasing: Last year, 487 bank ATMs were blown up.
The number of ATMs is decreasing every year. But the machines are still well stocked, because “Germans still love their cash,” says Achim Schmitz, head of the organized crime department at the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office. There are significantly fewer blasts in the Netherlands, which is partly due to the fact that there are far fewer machines there and the banks also protect these machines noticeably better than German banks.
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Most ATMs in North Rhine-Westphalia are blown up. 24 in the first seven weeks of this year alone. That is why the EK “Heat” was founded in 2015, which exclusively investigates ATM demolitions. In the current episode of Handelsblatt Today, LKA department head Schmitz explains how the investigators work, how many of the blasts were cleared up – and why German banks are more susceptible to blasts than Dutch ones.
More: Why banks now want to do without thousands of ATMs
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