Investigators have connected the gang to more than 50 “smash and grab” crimes around the city — incidents that see criminals crash a van (often stolen) into a storefront and then steal the ATM within.
If recent headlines make it seem like the Year of the Smash And Grab, well, that’s not far from the truth.
Today’s raids follow a separate investigation that led to 11 men being charged with those sorts of crimes back in August. In that indictment, a whopping 74 pages of records reveal how the men carefully plotted 10 runs across five counties over the previous year. All told, the group garnered “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
As Prosecutor Timothy McGinty pointed out at the time, these crimes are not simply financial; the method behind the thefts was often quite dangerous. (“We were greatly worried that someone was going to be killed,” he said at the time.)
In a feature on the rise of ATM thefts, Time reported that most machines hold anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2016.
I hope they smashed into their houses with an armored vehicle and grabbed them, while destroying their homes and property in the same way they have destroyed the livelihoods and businesses of their victims. Better yet, the vehicle should have destroyed them the way they destroyed these storefronts. Be like the Israelis…you mess with us, we knock down your fucking house and let you rot in the street.
Ever since this sick shit started, I have been hoping some pissed-off store owner and his friends would emerge from the back room with heavy firepower and ventilate these sorry-assed bastards. Turn these motherfuckers into Swiss cheese that leaks Hawaiian Punch from multiple holes.. Kill these thugs like the mad dogs they are…before they kill someone else. They deserve nothing less.
Chuckles the Clown