Thieves have raided 11 times, using stolen diggers to rip cash machines out of the wall

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The thieves have honed their modus operandi in audacious raids across Northern Ireland and just across the border with Ireland.

Under cover of night they steal a digger, trundle into town and smash open a wall containing an ATM. The digger scoops out the cash machine and lowers it into a waiting vehicle. The thieves abandon the digger and vanish into the darkness.

“I couldn’t believe it was possible to do that – four minutes, 10 seconds, that’s how long it took. It’s mad,” said Colleen Murphy, a supervisor at a garage in Dungiven, County Derry, the latest target to be hit.

Security camera footage showed what happened at about 4.15am on 7 April: three men with balaclavas arrived with a digger stolen from a nearby building site, demolished a chunk of wall and transferred the cash machine to a Citroën Berlingo car with its roof cut off. They drove away with the ATM protruding from the car.

It was the 11th cash machine robbery in recent months – a spree which has bamboozled police, angered shop owners and spawned jokes about a modern-day Hole in the Wall Gang.

The raid didn’t seem funny to employees of the family-owned shop in Dungiven, a small town at the foot of Benbradagh mountain near Ireland’s northern tip.

“That’s why it’s still so cold inside today – there’s no roof,” Murphy, 29, said this week, pointing to the gaping hole though which gusted a draft. Workmen were hammering in planks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thieves used a digger to smash a wall and steal an ATM from this service station in Dungiven on 7 April. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Guardian

The store was unlikely to replace the ATM, she said. “We don’t want anyone else to go through what we’ve been through. I’m angry. I just hope they’re caught, get justice.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Colleen Murphy, left, and Hannah McPoyle, work at the service station in Dungiven, Northern Ireland which was badly damaged in the ATM robbery on 7 April. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Guardian

Other towns hit in Northern Ireland this year include Ballymena, Dungannon, Irvinestown, Moira, Newtownabbey and Omagh. Thieves have also struck in counties Cavan and Monaghan in Ireland. Retailers feel under “siege”, according to the group Retail NI.

The identity of the gang – or gangs – is unknown.

Lady Sylvia Hermon, an independent unionist MP for North Down, told the House of Commons this week that dissident republicans were staging the raids to buy weapons and fund attacks on police and other targets along the border in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The Northern Ireland minister John Penrose said he could not comment on her claim due to ongoing police investigations.

A task force set up by the Police Service of Northern Ireland has had no luck catching the thieves, but assistant chief constable Barbara Gray said there was no evidence linking the robberies to dissident republicans. The PSNI and Gardai in the republic believe several gangs are responsible.

Ron Delnevo, European director of the ATM Industry Association, said that, based on similar thefts elsewhere in Europe, the criminals will keep going until caught. He urged towns and villages to form “ATM watch” groups.

The 2008 financial crash hammered the reputation of Irish banks. Dungiven has additional reason for resentment – the last bank quit the town last year, leaving it dependent on a handful of ATMs, including one that charges hefty fees.

“Some people were joking they should’ve taken that one,” said Enda Kealey, 31, a construction worker. “I’d say the police will catch them sooner than later. If they’re greedy they’ll just keep going.”

Aidan Farren, 74, a retired journalist, said the raid on the garage did not surprise him. “It was one of the sitting ducks.” The thieves appeared professional, he said. “You’d recognise they’re good at their job. But there is no respect for them. Ordinary people don’t want this. It’s an attack on the community.”

In an era of phishing and other cybercrimes the ATM spree has evoked the wild west outlaws who sought refuge in the Hole in the Wall, a remote pass in Wyoming, in the 1880s.

Jokes have proliferated on social media. A County Antrim trailer hire company posted on Facebook: “Need a low loader for your next ATM robbery – contact us immediately to check out our stock, we accept all cash sales.”

Such responses were misguided, said Aodhán Connolly, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium. “One of the most frustrating things is this narrative of victimless crimes and banks paying for it. It’s not.”

Rural communities were losing a necessary financial service and retailers were facing higher insurance costs, he said. “It’s sheer opportunistic criminality. It’s disgusting, really. We’re hopeful these people will be caught soon.”