ATM demolitions: “We are endangering lives here”

The perpetrators are often young, come from the Netherlands and cause devastating damage. Other countries show how ATM demolitions can be prevented. But Germany fails Report Mainz-Research on a unanimous answer.

According to a round table organized by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in November, the number of ATM demolitions in Germany continues to rise rapidly. According to research by ARD political magazine report Mainz since then, the perpetrators have blown up 162 ATMs, 61 this year alone. Nevertheless, the interest group of the German banking industry continues to rely on voluntary measures by the banks.

Lower Saxony’s Justice Minister Katrin Wahlmann (SPD) no longer wants to be satisfied with this and announces: “If we see that nothing is happening, then I will launch a corresponding Federal Council initiative to make the banks legally obliged to take appropriate security measures to accomplish.”

She goes on to say: “The Lower Saxony judiciary will not be put off by further round tables.” With a view to neighboring countries, which have largely stopped this form of crime, she finds it “personally unbelievable that a neighboring country manages to end the phenomenon completely with relatively simple measures – and Lower Saxony or Germany as a whole has not yet managed to do so”.

Successful prevention in the Netherlands

Senior public prosecutor Bernhard Südbeck from the Osnabrück public prosecutor’s office is in charge of all investigations into ATM blasts in Lower Saxony, which is badly affected due to its proximity to the border. He says: “We are clearly dealing with organized crime here.” The number of perpetrators has increased massively, and he now assumes that there are significantly more than 1,000 perpetrators from the Netherlands.

He heard from the neighboring country “that Germany should be a paradise for automatic sprinklers, because there are just too few security measures”. Südbeck warns: “We are endangering human lives here – and we are aware of that. In our district, the Osnabrück public prosecutor’s office, we have already had two cases in which fires have broken out, where almost people, entire families, have died.”

In fact, many of the ATMs that were blown were located in occupied buildings. In the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which was most affected by the blasts, around half of the 181 machines attacked last year were in residential buildings or directly adjacent to them.

An average of 100,000 euros in loot

Every successful blast now yields an “average loot of around 100,000 euros,” reports a public prosecutor, who asked not to be named, in an interview Report Mainz. The incentive for the perpetrators, who are often no older than 20, is high, they usually receive around ten percent of the loot.

Dutch chief investigator into ATM demolitions, Jos van der Stap, explains Report Mainz, measures were taken in the Netherlands ten years ago to achieve better prevention at ATMs. In the meantime, they are relying on the destruction of the money during the blast “so that the chance of success is zero”.

In the Netherlands, a security system developed jointly with the local national bank and investigators is used for this purpose, which glues the banknotes together in the cash box when an explosion is triggered, making them unusable.

Bundesbank plans talks with the banking industry

This technology is not yet used in Germany. In a statement published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior of all participants in the round table “ATM blasting” at the beginning of November, it was said that adhesive systems could “represent another solution as soon as these systems are ready for the market” and that “the Bundesbank can guarantee that the bonded banknotes can be refunded”.

When asked, the Bundesbank informed that the products previously offered on the European market differed in the degree of adhesion. If the banknotes were fully glued, they could not be checked for authenticity and number for reimbursement of the amount by the Bundesbank.

“During the pending talks with the banking industry, it will be shown how the submitting bank can provide the relevant evidence if the authenticity and number of banknotes presented cannot be determined directly,” writes the Bundesbank. The talks are scheduled for March.

No overview for banking associations

Countries such as France and Portugal show that color marking of banknotes can also prevent them from being blown up. Provided it is used across the board. Banks are legally obliged to install such systems there. The result was that the number of blasts there dropped significantly. The color security system is also available in Germany, but according to insiders, it has so far only been installed in relatively few machines.

The German banking industry, on behalf of all four major banking associations, received a request from Report Mainz answered, wrote in writing that she had no information on how many ATMs in Germany were currently already equipped with color security systems.

Banks accountable

In the declaration published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior of all participants in the round table three months ago, it was stated that the leading associations of the German banking industry were working towards “the preventive measures classified as effective by the security authorities, at risk locations as the result of their respective risk analysis and their individual security concept, individually or as a whole. to implement in combination”.

When asked how the measures agreed in the declaration would now be implemented, the spokesman for the German banking industry said with: “We inform our member institutes and ask them to carry out a risk analysis for each location – if they have not already done so – and to implement the resulting measures.” Initially, only the banks themselves know what will actually be implemented by when at which locations.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior, which initiated the round table in November, agrees Report Mainz in writing, should the implementation of the new approaches not be sufficient, the ministry considers “legal obligations to be necessary”. It will be “particularly about the legal obligation of ATM operators.”

You can see more on this and other topics today at 9:50 p.m. with Report Mainz in the first