Thieves use backhoe to smash ATM, but come up empty-handed

Updated Aug 2, 2013

“We’ve had machines stolen before, but no one’s ever pulled off a bank heist with them.”

That’s what a worker at the Trocom Construction Corp. equipment yard in Queens, New York told the New York Daily News after learning that thieves had broken into the yard, stolen a backhoe and then used it to smash an ATM.

Shortly after 3 a.m. on July 26, the thieves drove the backhoe two blocks from the yard to a Chase bank branch and attempted to crack open the ATM with the backhoe’s bucket.

The tactic proved unsuccessful however and the thieves ran off, leaving the crumple ATM and damaged backhoe behind.

But this wasn’t the thieves’ first go-around. The New York Police Department say this is the group’s 11th such attempt in a string of “brute force” thefts. So far, the thieves have stolen $26,000 from the ATMs and on one occasion unsuccessfully used a tow truck to pull an ATM from a bank wall.

“I hope they catch the thief,” Trocom fleet manager, Darren Dowd told the Daily News. “I lost a half day’s work and the machine’s damaged now.”