Tightening the noose on ATM bombers
ATM bombers continued to target Switzerland in 2021. Those who are caught pay a high price for their daring.
Since 2019, over 20 ATMs have been blown up every year in Switzerland. fedpol knows the criminal gangs carrying out these heists, the blasting methods they use and their flight behaviour.
And yet the manhunts and investigations that ensue are often still difficult. The perpetrators are active across borders. The vehicles they use to carry out their heists are often stolen shortly before, the license plates either removed or switched out with fake ones, and the perpetrators make sure to cross cantonal and national borders when committing their crimes.
Usually all that is left behind is devastation. The criminals are careful not to leave any DNA or fingerprints at the scene. Even so, fedpol and the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) have been able to learn more about them with every new case.
First times and a Christmas coup
fedpol is in constant contact with other countries and keeps them informed about the latest police findings. Thanks to the intensive exchange of information both between cantons and with other countries, Switzerland’s authorities are becoming ever more successful in their fight against ATM burglars. In 2021, they achieved the following:
In the spring two ATMs were blasted open in the canton of Schaffhausen, in Wilchingen and Buchberg. Forensic evidence led to the identification of one suspect, who the Attorney General’s Office then added to the Schengen Information System’s (SIS) wanted list. At the end of November, he was arrested abroad and extradited to Switzerland.
On 22 December, an ATM bomber was brought before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona for the first time ever (more on that here). At the request of the Office of the Attorney General, he was sentenced to 74 months in prison. The conviction is not yet final.
In the early morning of 24 December, the French authorities, in close cooperation with fedpol and the German and Dutch authorities, closed in on several suspects in Bartenheim (France). The French police arrested four people in a hotel room near the Swiss border. During the ensuing search, explosives, detonators and forged license plates were seized, among other things. The people arrested were suspects in several ATM blasts that took place in 2020 and 2021.
There is considerable evidence that these gangs have hideouts abroad they use for logistics and to plan (serial) attacks on ATMs in Switzerland. fedpol remains on the trail of the ATM bombers and continues to tighten the noose on the suspects.
Explosives and an arrest at the border crossing in Thayngen (Schaffhausen)
“Still no movement” reported the observation unit of the Cantonal Police of Vaud. The team was observing a house that had been booked for a few days via an online platform. The tenant himself would not be showing up. He was in custody – and had been since the evening before, after a check at the Thayngen border crossing.
In the man’s car, the employees of the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security had found explosives, other suspicious objects and an address in a small commune in Vaud. Had he been planning to meet a gang of ATM burglars there? fedpol was pulling out all the stops in its search for possible accomplices, but there was “Still no movement”.
It looks like the criminals were one step ahead of the police on that day. They must now use the evidence they secured to find out more about the intended crime. Was the arrested man really in contact with a gang of ATM burglars? The investigations by fedpol and the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland are ongoing.