Number 8 2013 UK ATM Heists Throughout 2013, a British gang
perpetrated a series of robberies that involved blowing up ATMs to get to the cash inside, marking
the first time that such tactics had been used in the UK. The men carried out an estimated 30
attacks, targeting ATMs at banks, mostly in rural areas, in the northwest and Midlands of England.
They’d used crowbars to pry open the machines and then inserted a tube through which they released
a mixture of oxygen and acetylene that was then sparked. The powerful explosions also damaged the
buildings but, fortunately, no one was hurt. After the blast, the gang would force their way into the
bank itself and retrieve the cash before driving off in high-performance cars, which were clocked
in at speeds of up to 190 mph. Some of their raids were captured by surveillance footage but the
getaway vehicles had cloned plates which is why the authorities faced difficulty in tracking them.
The gang, whose heists were compared by the media to those in the Fast and Furious franchise,
stole over $1 million while also causing a nearly equivalent amount in damages. After an
investigation lasting close to a year, the police were ultimately able to locate their safe house
through a tracker that had been fitted to the cash box from one of the machines.
As the case unfolded, the authorities retrieved some of the materials which the gang had used,
including a stolen and re-sprayed Audi, and also found abundant forensic evidence.
Roughly a dozen men were arrested in the aftermath and charged with conspiracy to cause explosions
and conspiracy to commit burglary for which they were given sentences ranging from 13
to 19 years. In March of 2014, Kurt Beddoes and Craig Cartwright, both in their 30s, admitted to
their roles as ringleaders of an operation that would inspire other similar heists in the UK.
They were each sentenced to 17 years in prison. The most recent arrest related to the case was
Adam Murphy, apprehended in February of 2021 and subsequently handed down a sentence of 15 years.
Number 7 Charles Omar McGee Within moments of making a withdrawal
from an ATM, in May of 2017, a Tampa woman was robbed. On the first of the month, the victim,
whose identity wasn’t released, had the cash in hand after taking it out of the machine at Amscot
Financial on Florida Avenue, at around 1:40 am. A man, who would later be identified as 43-year-old
Charles Omar McGee, had been standing behind her and waited until she completed the transaction.
McGee then lunged in and grabbed the money out of the woman’s hand. She desperately tried holding
on to it and nearly fell when McGee began to overpower her. As shown by security cameras,
another woman was at an ATM next to them but didn’t intervene. She continued to operate the
machine and only stepped back when McGee pushed his victim in her direction. McGee then walked
out with the money but was arrested later that same week after local law enforcement
had released the surveillance footage. Number 6 Tamara Sinclair
In late February of 2021, a former Miss Jamaica contestant died from injuries sustained
in an attack at an ATM in the Bronx borough of New York City. On February the 11th, Tamara Sinclair,
aged 43, was inside a TD Bank vestibule when another woman, later identified as 21-year-old
Reign Harney, started banging on the glass asking Sinclair to let her inside. The former
beauty queen was frightened by the encounter and refused to do so. She then went across the street
to a Bank of America but Harney went after her. According to Sinclair’s younger sister,
who wasn’t present at the scene, she’d tried to disengage telling her pursuer “I don’t know you”.
A verbal argument ensued that escalated resulting in Harney and two of her female friends, Francis
Morales and Channell Arroyo, attacking Sinclair. She was punched, kicked and stomped on. One of the
women stole her phone while the other took her wallet and gave it to Harney to rifle through.
A security guard reportedly broke up the brutal beating and called the authorities. Sinclair filed
a police report on February the 17th and a few days later went to the Montefiore Medical Centre,
complaining of chest and head pain. Doctors told her that the attack had resulted in the
formation of dangerous blood clots but Sinclair refused further treatment as she was worried that
she wouldn’t be able to cover the cost. After she returned home, Sinclair couldn’t eat or sleep and,
on February the 22nd, died in front of her sister. Harney was arrested along with Morales and Arroyo,
both in their early 20s, and all three were charged with murder and robbery.
Number 5 Ashanti Slater & Isis Wallace In August of 2020, over the course of a single
week, teenagers Ashanti Slater and Isis Wallace robbed people at the same ATM, in Edinburg, Texas,
on two separate occasions. On August the 24th, an unnamed woman had withdrawn $600 from a
Chase Bank ATM. She was approached by a woman, believed to have been either Wallace or Slater,
who was wearing dark clothing and a black, gaiter-style mask.
The robber brandished a silver object, which the victim thought to be a handgun and she
consequently handed over the money. Around the time of the incident, neighborhood surveillance
cameras captured a silver Nissan speeding away with its lights off. On August the 30th,
at around 11:15, Wallace attacked a woman, who’d withdrawn $60 from the same ATM, through the
driver side window of her vehicle. The victim’s husband got out of the car and chased after
Wallace who ran from the scene and was picked up by Slater. By that time, police had already been
searching for two African-American females in a silver car, in connection to the first robbery.
Slater and Wallace, both 18 at the time, were stopped near McColl and University. A search
was conducted and an officer found marijuana in their car. Wallace waived her rights and
verbally implicated herself to the robbery on the 24th, pointing to Slater as her accomplice.
Both were arrested and charged with aggravated robbery, robbery and possession of marijuana.
Number 4 ATM Explosion Kills Thief At the time of the George Floyd protests,
starting in late May of 2020, dozens of ATMs were blown up, vandalized or stolen entirely
by looters in Philadelphia. The police deemed it an “organized and coordinated” effort.
Outside Blue Jay Restaurant at 29th Street and Girard Avenue, in Brewerytown, an ATM was blown
up twice in consecutive days. The thieves hadn’t been able to get to the cash the first time around
but were successful on the second try as local law enforcement still struggled to contain the
chaos that had gripped the streets. In another case, a burglar suffered fatal injuries after
using explosives to try and pry open one of the machines. On June the 2nd, the would-be thief,
only identified as a 24-year-old man, placed an improvised bomb in a sidewalk-facing ATM
outside a sports bar along North 2nd Street, near Susquehanna Avenue. It’s unclear if he’d misjudged
the blast radius or hadn’t allowed himself enough time to get clear. He was impacted by
the explosion and suffered trauma to his upper body. The man was rushed to a nearby hospital
but passed away a few hours later. Number 3 James Fairburn & Stuart Penney
Between October of 2017 and February of the following year, James Fairburn and Stuart Penney
targeted several ATMs housed at businesses in northeast England. The men, both in their mid-30s,
had been connected to seven attacks in Bradford, Keighley, Huddersfield and Darlington as well as
to two cases of auto theft for the vehicles they’d used to carry out the heists. Fairburn and Penney
would pump gas into the machines then triggered explosions that severely damaged the buildings
where they were located, which mainly consisted of convenience stores and gas stations.
While no one was hurt, the blasts frightened communities and economically impacted business
owners in the neighborhoods where they occurred. The robbers stole the equivalent of over $400,000.
Their last heist was at a store in Bradford where the explosion tore the door and roof
off the annex where the ATM was housed. Pieces of brickwork were sent flying into people’s gardens.
Fairburn and Penney presumably fled in a panic as they abandoned their tools, which consisted
of two gas canisters hooked to a car battery with tubes that fed into the ATM. The evidence
contributed to the investigation and the police eventually conducted a search of their addresses,
where they found hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash and mobile phones. Fairburn
and Penney were arrested in February of 2018. They subsequently admitted their guilt at Leeds
Crown Court after which, in 2021, they were sentenced to 12 and 14.5 years respectively.
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Number 2 Anh Nguyen and Joshua Puckett In 2015, a man and a woman from Frisco, Texas,
were taken into custody by local authorities following a robbery and assault that occurred on
December the 8th. Anh Nguyen and Joshua Puckett, both in their late 20s, followed an unnamed
38-year-old woman after she’d taken money out of an ATM at a 7-Eleven in 7950 Gaylord Parkway.
As she returned to her car in the parking lot of an apartment complex, Nguyen and Puckett attacked
her. Puckett struck her multiple times in the head with a dark-colored handgun before the pair made
off with her handbag. Both were arrested in the aftermath and charged with aggravated robbery with
a deadly weapon and each held on a $100,000 bond. Number 1 Utrecht Gang
In the fall of 2021, law enforcement in Germany and the Netherlands cooperated to take down a gang
that had set up an illegal training facility in Europe, teaching would-be thieves how to blow up
ATMs. The criminal operation even involved filming tutorials. The cross-border investigation unfolded
over the course of 18 months and culminated in 9 arrests. The suspects had been ordering
different ATM models which were transported to their hideout in Utrecht, the Netherlands,
then experimented and tried to find the most effective way to open them. They would then hand
the training videos in person to other robbers. In 2020, a test went awry and the main suspect,
only identified as a 29-year-old man, was killed in the explosion while his 24-year-old accomplice
sustained serious injuries. The investigation had commenced after police in Osnabruck,
Germany, reported suspicious ATM orders from a local company. The gang was subsequently
linked to at least 15 cash machine bombings in Germany, from which they made off with nearly
$2.5 million. Such attacks have been deemed a growing concern in the country where,
according to the Associated Press, an estimated 414 ATMs were blown up in 2020 alone.
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