Criminals are looting millions of ATMs in Europe. Here’s why Germany is a priority target

In the early hours of Thursday, March 23, 2023, several explosions woke up the inhabitants of the German city of Kronberg.

The criminals blew up an ATM located under a block of flats in the city center.

The attack caused serious damage to the building and forced the evacuation of its inhabitants. According to local media reports, witnesses saw people dressed in dark clothing fleeing in a black car towards a nearby road.

During the robbery, the thieves stole 130,000 euros in cash. They also caused collateral damage worth an estimated half a million euros, according to a report by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

Instead of organizing dramatic and risky bank robberies, criminal groups in Europe have been targeting ATMs as an easier and more discreet objective.

In Germany – Europe’s largest economy – thieves have been blowing up ATMs at a rate of more than one a day in recent years. In a country where Cash remains a predominant payment method.Thefts can be incredibly lucrative, with criminals pocketing hundreds of thousands of euros in a single attack.

Europol has been cracking down on theft, carry out large cross-border operations aimed at taking down the highly organized criminal gangs behind them.

Earlier this month, authorities in Germany, France and the Netherlands arrested three members of a criminal network who had been carrying out attacks on ATMs using explosives, Europol said in a statement.

Since 2022, detainees are believed to have looted millions of euros and racked up a similar amount in property damage, from 2022 to 2024, Europol said.

The criminal network used locations in France as “hiding places” and relied on getaway cars rented from a French rental company, according to the statement.

The arrests came as part of a broader operation by German, French and Dutch investigators, in which law enforcement also searched car rental companies whose vehicles had been used to flee crime scenes, on a “day of action” in places in the three countries.

Europol says the perpetrators have mainly used solid explosives, mainly derived from fireworks, to blow up the machines filled with cash, a dangerous tactic that causes serious damage. In 2023, looting in Germany caused only secondary damage worth €28.4 million, according to BKA.

Often based in the Netherlands, the gangs “take extreme risks and act unscrupulously”, Europol says, both during robberies and subsequent getaways in high-powered vehicles.

The ATMs chosen are usually in quieter residential areas, making them easier targets. According to Europol, this means they pose serious damage to buildings and residents. The attacks can crumble building facades and scatter glass shards.

In some cases, they can even be fatal.

On November 11, a robbery at an ATM in the town of Wiernsheim, in the German state of Baden Württemberg, ended in disaster. After stealing 40,000 euros in cash, a trio of criminals from the Netherlands attempted to escape at high speed in a VW Golf with a stolen license plate, according to local media reports. Pursued by police, they drove in the wrong direction on Germany’s A6 motorway.

Two of the three criminals were caught at a rest stop, but the 30-year-old Dutch driver escaped and continued driving against traffic at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, until colliding head-on with a van.

The driver and passenger of the truck were seriously injured and the passenger died in hospital days later. The driver, who was also seriously injured, was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.

Crime on the rise

Germany has become Europe’s top target for ATM bombings. And with their penchant for cash payments, it’s not hard to see why.

The country has more than 51,000 ATMs. In comparison, the Netherlands has around 5,000. According to the central bank, the Bundesbank, the majority of Germany’s 83.3 million citizens do not have to travel more than a kilometer to reach the nearest ATM.

Unlike its European neighbors, which have largely abandoned cash payments due to the Covid-19 pandemicCash continues to play an important role in Germany. According to the Bundesbank, half of all transactions in 2023 were carried out with banknotes and coins.

Germans have a cultural attachment to cash and traditionally consider it a secure payment method. Some say it allows for a greater level of privacy and gives them more control over their spending.

A 2016 study by the Bundesbank found that cash is particularly prevalent among older generations of Germans, signifying lingering memories of the country’s turbulent recent history. could play a role in Germany’s reluctance to go digital.

“Neither digitalization nor the pandemic have been able to displace cash. When it comes to payments, cash remains by far the most popular medium in Germany,” said Johannes Beermann of the Bundesbank in a post-pandemic 2022 press release.

In terms of location, Germany is also an ideal target for cross-border crime: it neighbors the Netherlands and is linked by motorways on some of which no speed limits apply.

According to Reuters, the decline in the number of ATMs in the Netherlands and the introduction of enhanced security measures to combat crime (including the installation of glue protection systems that can cause banknotes to lose their value) have also led to Dutch criminals to look further. quoting Dutch police.

A 2023 BKA report notes that ATM thefts in Germany have increased since 2005, although they decreased slightly between 2022 and 2023. Still, Germany recorded a total of 461 such thefts in 2023, the second highest number since surveys began in 2005.

The report also found that, as in previous years, the number of robberies decreased during the summer months of 2023, when longer daylight hours increase the risk of being caught. Most crimes occurred during the week, between 2 and 5 a.m., according to the BKA.

A spokesperson for the German Banking Industry Committee, which represents all of Germany’s major banking associations, told CNN: “Germany maintains one of the most extensive ATM networks in Europe…

“This extensive network has attracted, in part, organized criminal groups from abroad, seeing ATM density and Germany’s demand for access to cash as factors in their favor.”

German banks have invested more than €300 million in improving security to address the problem, the spokesperson continued, including “alarm systems, ink stain solutions, reinforced locking mechanisms and fogging technology.” However, certain techniques, such as gluing systems to neutralize stolen money, are currently not permitted in Germany, the spokesperson added.

“These efforts, together with increased cooperation with the police, have effectively reduced ATM attacks, with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reporting that the 2024 figures are already ‘significantly below last year’ “said the spokesperson.

In July, the German government announced that ATM thefts would receive harsher punishments. Thieves must be sentenced to at least two years in prison, when the previous minimum sentence was one year. If the health of an uninvolved person or persons is affected, perpetrators should receive prison sentences of five to fifteen years, compared to at least two years previously.

“Anyone who blows up ATMs puts the lives of uninvolved people at risk,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

“Here we are faced with unscrupulous perpetrators and highly dangerous explosives. Therefore, these acts must be punished more severely.”

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