In the early hours of Thursday, March 23, 2023, residents of the German town of Kronberg were awakened from their sleep by several explosions.

The criminals had blown up an ATM located under a block in the city center.

The attack caused severe damage to the building and forced the evacuation of its residents. According to local media reports, witnesses saw people dressed in dark clothing fleeing in a black car towards a nearby highway.

During the robbery, the thieves stole 130,000 euros in cash. They also caused collateral damage estimated at half a million euros, according to a report by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA.

Instead of staging dramatic and risky bank robberies, criminal groups across Europe were targeted ATMs as an easier and more discreet target.

In Germany – Europe’s largest economy – thieves have blown up ATMs at more than one a day in recent years. In a country where cash is still a predominant payment methodheists can prove incredibly lucrative, with criminals pocketing hundreds of thousands of euros in a single attack.

Europol cracked down on robberies, conducting large-scale cross-border operations aimed at taking down the highly organized criminal gangs behind them.

Earlier this month, authorities in Germany, France and the Netherlands arrested three members of a criminal network that carried out ATM attacks using explosives, Europol said in a statement.

Since 2022, the inmates are believed to have looted millions of euros and racked up a similar amount in property damage from 2022 to 2024, Europol said.

The crime ring used locations in France as “hideouts” and relied on getaway cars rented from a French rental company, according to the statement.

The arrests came as part of a wider operation by German, French and Dutch investigators, which also saw law enforcement search rental car companies whose vehicles were used to flee the scene of the crime. in a “day of action” in locations across the three countries.

Europol says the criminals mostly used solid explosives, mainly from fireworks, to blow up the machines full of cash – a dangerous tactic that leads to serious damage. In 2023, robberies in Germany alone caused collateral damage worth 28.4 million euros, according to the BKA.

Often based in the Netherlands, the gangs “take extreme risks and act without scruples”, Europol says, both during the robberies themselves and the subsequent getaways in high-powered vehicles.

Chosen ATMs are often in quieter residential areas, making them easier targets. According to Europol, this means that they are causing serious damage to buildings and residents. Attacks can collapse building facades and scatter glass shards.

In some cases, they can even prove fatal.

On November 11, an ATM robbery in the town of Wiernsheim in the German state of Baden Württemberg ended in disaster. After stealing €40,000 in cash, a trio of criminals from the Netherlands attempted a high-speed getaway in a VW Golf with stolen license plates, according to local media reports. Pursued by the police, they drove the wrong way on the A6 motorway in Germany.

Two of the three offenders were caught at a traffic stop, but the 30-year-old Dutch driver escaped and continued to drive against traffic at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour until he collided head-on with a van.

The driver and passenger in the truck were seriously injured, with the passenger dying in hospital a few days later. The driver, who was also seriously injured, was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.

A crime on the rise

Germany has become Europe’s top target for ATM attacks. And with the penchant for cash payments, it’s not hard to see why.

The country has more than 51,000 ATMs. In comparison, the Netherlands has around 5,000. Most of Germany’s 83.3 million citizens do not have to travel more than a kilometer to reach the nearest ATM, according to the central bank, the Bundesbank.

Unlike its European neighbors, which have largely moved away from cash payments due to the Covid-19 pandemiccash still plays an important role in Germany. Half of all transactions in 2023 were carried out using banknotes and coins, according to the Bundesbank.

Germans have a cultural attachment to cash, traditionally seeing it as a secure method of payment. Some say it allows for a greater level of privacy and gives them more control over their spending.

A 2016 study by the Bundesbank found that cash is particularly prevalent among older generations of Germans, meaning lingering reminders of the country’s turbulent recent history. could play a role in Germany’s reluctance to go digital.

“Neither digitization nor the pandemic managed to extract cash. When it comes to making payments, cash is by far the most popular medium in Germany,” said Johannes Beermann of the Bundesbank in a post-pandemic 2022 press release.

In terms of location, Germany is also an ideal target for cross-border crime: bordering the Netherlands and connected by highways on some of which speed limits do not apply.

A decline in ATMs in the Netherlands and the introduction of enhanced security measures to combat crime – including the installation of adhesive protection systems that can render banknotes worthless – have prompted Dutch criminals to look further afield, according to Reuters, citing Dutch police.

A 2023 BKA report notes that ATM robberies in Germany have increased since 2005, although they fell slightly from 2022 to 2023. However, Germany counted a total of 461 such robberies in 2023 – the second highest number since surveys began in 2005.

The report also found that, as in previous years, the number of thefts fell in the summer months of 2023 – when longer daylight hours offer a greater risk of being caught. Most of the crimes took place on weekdays between 2 and 5, according to the BKA.

A spokesman for the German Banking Industry Committee, which represents all of Germany’s major banking associations, told CNN: “Germany maintains one of the most extensive ATM networks in Europe…

“This extensive network has, in part, attracted organized crime groups from abroad, seeing the density of ATMs and Germany’s demand for access to cash as factors in their favor.”

German banks have invested more than 300 million euros in increased security to tackle the problem, the spokesman continued, including “alarm systems, ink staining solutions, strengthened locking mechanisms and fogging technology”. However, certain techniques, such as bonding systems for neutralizing stolen cash, are currently not allowed in Germany, the spokesman added.

“These efforts, together with increased cooperation with the police, have effectively reduced attacks on ATMs, with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reporting that the figures for 2024 are already ‘significantly below last year’,” the spokesman said.

In July, the German government announced that ATM robberies would face tougher penalties. The thieves must be sentenced to at least two years in prison, when the previous minimum sentence was one year. If the health of a person or persons not involved is affected, the perpetrators must receive a prison sentence of between five and fifteen years, up from at least two years previously.

“Anyone who blows up ATMs is putting the lives of bystanders at risk,” Interior Secretary Nancy Faeser said.

“Here we are dealing with unscrupulous perpetrators and extremely dangerous explosives. Therefore, these acts must be punished more severely.”

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