The greatest concern for most of us when it comes to visiting an ATM is remembering out PIN and making sure a skimmer isn’t stealing our info, but they do things a little differently in Arkansas. Rather than scraping PINs or strong-arming visitors, some seriously ambitious thieves decided to just cut out the middleman and steal the entire box, and they brought the right equipment to pull it off.
Riding in on a massive CAT forklift — technically called a telescopic handler, or telehandler, but it has forks and lifts so we’ll call it what we want — the bold baddies rolled right into the drive-thru lane of the First Service Bank in Conway, Arkansas. Then, after snapping the ATM right off of its concrete foundation, the thieves picked it up with the construction machine and dropped it onto the bed of a truck.
While extracting the ATM, the lift severely damaged the interior roof of the drive-thru itself, which just adds insult to injury for the victimized bank. The total amount of money the bandits made away with isn’t clear, but ATMs can hold quite a bit of cash, so it was likely a pretty impressive haul.
Due to the fact that the security cameras only captures images of the telehandler, and the suspects can’t be clearly seen whatsoever, the Conway Police Department is hoping someone will recognize the lift itself, potentially identifying the suspects in the process. Investigators believe those involved have some ties to the construction industry, which is probably a safe bet.
