Making the ATMs bomb-secure looks like a very expensive endeavour, if that’s possible at all. After all, people need physical access to the ATMs for the withdrawal, the same applies to planting explosives.
I bet the vast majority of the ATMs remain unused during the night. That may be different for a rare few in central areas like Langstrasse or Niederdorf, but there’s probably next to no withdrawals from 10pm to 6am in the vast majority of cases. Plus, there’s plenty of electronic alternatives nowadays. Heck, even immediate bank transfer is available now.
The criminals strike in the very early hours. That makes closing the bank entirely from before midnight thru perhaps 6am look like a useful measure.
That aside, @Axa, here’s a map with this year’s ATM blowups. The robbers act opportunistically, they go for the easy targets, travel distance is secondary (though of course not entirely irrelevant). They’ll move east once the west’s ATMs have been secured:
@Roxi: what? 15 blown bancomats from Jan to Jun 2024? Insurance companies are not reacting fast enough. After all, we live in a country where car insurance is split by citizenship, it shouldn’t be that hard to not insure buildings with cash machines in them.
Wow, that’s a lot. I never heard of them, not interesting enough for the news?
Did they catch anyone? That’s almost a full time job, more than 2 a month, preparation, checking out the area and habits …
And is it really worth it I wonder? Somehow I doubt there really is a lot of money in there.
If it wasn’t worth it, they probably would have stopped at the first or second one.
People here seem quite happy to carry around 500 CHF or more in notes in their wallets so that translates to quite a bit of cash in the machines - especially as many “real” bank branches don’t dispense money over the counter anymore.
Another robbery ATM last night in Tobel (TG) but nothing was stolen.
In Tobel (TG) an ATM was blown up on the night of Friday, November 1st, 2024. There was significant material damage.
Shortly after 3 a.m., the cantonal emergency call center received a burglary alarm on the main road. Emergency services from the Thurgau cantonal police were quickly on the scene. They found a damaged ATM in the entrance area of a bank branch. A search immediately initiated by the Thurgau cantonal police with the support of the St. Gallen cantonal police has so far been unsuccessful. According to the Thurgau cantonal police’s current findings, an unknown perpetrator blew up the ATM. They left the crime scene without taking any stolen goods. No one was injured. Property damage amounting to several hundred thousand francs was caused. Specialists from the forensic service of the Thurgau cantonal police and the Zurich Forensic Institute secured the evidence at the crime scene. The Thurgau cantonal police have begun investigations in cooperation with the public prosecutor’s office. A representative of the Federal Office of Police fedpol was also involved in the operation. The Lauchental fire department set up a bypass and diverted traffic.
I’ve heard that ATMs are protected by putting a liquid in delicate containers between the bills, so in the event of an explosion all the bills should be permanently damaged, unfortunately it must have been a science fiction story as proven by these events
That only invalidates the money.
If the ATM is sitting on the ground floor of a building worth millions, that is unfortunately a bit pointless.
The money is just pieces of paper in the end.
As I said, I understand why ZKB and other banks are doing this, but it still frustrates me.
The ATM has a separate compartment to hold unclaimed money. However, I believe it only has 1 of these. So if 2 people fail to remove their money the machine, after the 2nd retraction, will shut down. The money from the first forgotten removal will be in the separate container. The money from the 2nd forgotten removal will remain in the dispensing mechanism blocking any further dispensing so the machine will have to go out of service.
