Last summer, financial institutions throughout Texas started reporting a sudden increase in attacks involving well-orchestrated teams that would show up at night, use stolen trucks and heavy chains to rip Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) out of their foundations, and make off with the cash boxes inside. Now it appears the crime — known variously as “ATM smash-and-grab” or “chain gang” attacks — is rapidly increasing in other states.
Four different ATM “chain gang” attacks in Texas recently. Image: Texas Bankers Association.
The Texas Bankers Association documented at least 139 chain gang attacks against Texas financial institutions in the year ending November 2020. The association says organized crime is the main source of the destructive activity, and that Houston-based FBI officials have made more than 50 arrests and are actively tracking about 250 individuals suspected of being part of these criminal rings.
From surveillance camera footage examined by fraud investigators, the perpetrators have followed the same playbook in each incident. The bad guys show up in the early morning hours with a truck or tractor that’s been stolen from a local construction site.
Then two or three masked men will pry the front covering from the ATM using crowbars, and attach heavy chains to the cash machine. The canisters of cash inside are exposed once the crooks pull the ATM’s safe door off using the stolen vehicle.
In nearly all cases, the perpetrators are done in less than five minutes.
Tracey Santor is the bond product manager for Travelers, which insures a large number of financial institutions against this type of crime. Santor said investigators questioning some of the suspects learned that the smash-and-grabs are used as a kind of initiation for wo ..
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