The police have arrested two men who are said to have assisted ATM bombers in their crimes. They are said to have provided the perpetrators with getaway cars.
The police arrested two men who are said to have organized high-horsepower escape vehicles to blow up ATMs in North Rhine-Westphalia. The police and public prosecutor’s office in Münster said the emergency services intervened on Friday after a long investigation.
A 22-year-old was arrested in Maassluis, the Netherlands, and a 36-year-old in Halle in Westphalia. Both would have procured the high-powered sports cars, some of them illegally, and then handed them over to the gangs. The men would have known that their customers wanted to use the cars as getaway vehicles after ATMs were blown up. They are said to have gotten the escape vehicles for almost ten blasts since September 2021. Arrest warrants have been issued for both of them for aiding and abetting a bomb explosion.
For a long time there has been an accumulation of ATM demolitions in Germany, especially in the western federal states, especially North Rhine-Westphalia. As can be seen from a corresponding situation report by the Federal Criminal Police Office, 268 cases were counted nationwide in 2020 in which perpetrators successfully caused an explosion. Compared to the previous year, this was an increase of almost 23 percent. About two thirds of all suspects are traveling perpetrators from the Netherlands.
