Forget Banks. They're Yanking ATMs From Bodegas

New York's corner stores are under siege, but it isn't the candy aisle crooks are after. A wave of smash-and-grab ATM thefts has been reported in the city, with police suspecting a single three-man crew is behind more than three dozen fast, muscle-powered burglaries that took place between September and January, the New York Times reports. The criminals' method is simple: roll up in a stolen vehicle, disable surveillance cameras, break in with a crowbar or something similar, yank a 200-pound ATM out the door, and vanish—all in about five minutes.

The payoff from these brute-force capers ranges from a few hundred bucks if the ATM's cash reserve is low to $50,000-plus. Police peg the "generic" take at $15,000 per machine; with 39 hits attributed to one crew, that's around $585,000 in six months. Store owners make little profit from the machine's transaction fees—perhaps $100 to $200 a month—but they aren't on the hook when they're stolen. The machines are owned by companies that rent the space and pay out that fee split; the Times speaks with two ATM company owners who have 1,000 and 5,000 ATMs around the city, respectively.

The owner of the first company says "I don't think there was anything magical," about the rise in thefts. "The average person is under the impression that [ATMs are] a lot more secure and heavier than they really are." Some in the industry are pushing to have the ATM burglaries treated as federal crimes like bank robberies, which can have 20-year sentences attached. Congress is currently considering such a bill. In the meantime, "These kinds of cases, it's not something they care about," the second owner says of the police. "A lot of times, when the machines get robbed, they would show up, take the information, take photos and say, 'Here's your police report,' and that's it. We file an insurance claim. Nothing ever happens."