Thieves used an industrial digger to steal a cash machine from the wall outside a newsagents in an early morning raid in South Lanarkshire.
Four people wearing balaclavas carried out the ATM theft at Bobby’s Newsagents in the tiny village of Forth shortly after 4am on Friday morning.
It comes as experts warned of a huge rise in “smash and grab” ATM thefts across Britain - up to almost two ram-raids a day in 2018.
The removal of the machine in South Lanarkshire - believed to have contained a five-figure sum of money - caused extensive damage to the building.
After using a Manitou digger to rip the ATM from the wall, the suspects escaped in a silver Kia Sorento.
Police later recovered the car in the nearby Carnwath area and are appealing for information about the incident.
Detective Sergeant Erin Renwick from Wishaw CID said: “We are appealing to anyone who was in the vicinity of Main Street, Forth, in the early hours of Friday morning and may have seen or heard anything at all suspicious to please get in touch.
“We would also ask any motorists with dashcams who were travelling between the Forth and Carnwath areas to check in case they have captured any footage which could be of significance to the investigation.
“The silver Kia Sorento was very obviously modified and we would appeal to anyone who noticed this vehicle to get in touch.”
There have been almost 460 raids on ATMs in the UK this year, according to the British Security Industry Association (BSIA).
Safercash, a British Security Industry Association initiative, said they had seen “a really high spike in this level of crime”.
Experts have suggested the rise is connected to the lesser sentences those convicted of ATM theft receive compare to thieves found guilty of armed robbery.
“Ram-raiding an ATM means technically speaking you haven’t even broken into a property because they are external protrusions even though they might be embedded in the wall,” James Treadwell, professor of Criminology at Staffordshire University, told The Huffington Post.
“You might face a charge of aggravated theft but that’s not going to mean as much jail time as an armed robbery.”
Anyone with information about the Lanarkshire theft is asked to contact Wishaw CID via 101, quoting incident number 0397 of Friday October 12.
Alternatively you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
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