Metro, FBI on alert after ATM ripoffs

Karen Zekan

Monday, Feb. 8, 1999 | 11:51 a.m.

Targeted attacks on ATM kiosks have local authorities on the alert this week after one cash machine was stolen and another ditched in the desert.

Few details were available on this past weekend's incident, although authorities say the machine ripped from the ground late Friday or early Saturday from a strip mall off Buffalo and Regatta drives has not been recovered. Authorities this morning could not say which bank the ATM belonged to.

Meanwhile, FBI agents soon will begin reviewing surveillance tape recovered from a Pioneer Citizens Bank ATM found ditched in the desert last week, along with a stolen pickup and front-end used in the failed theft, Kevin Caudle, spokesman for the FBI, said today.

An alarm was triggered at Pioneer's 8260 W. Sahara Ave. property when the outdoor ATM was ripped from the ground about 3 a.m. Friday, its severed wires left exposed.

Metro Police's air unit located the machine on the back of a red pickup about a half-mile away in the desert, but the would-be thieves had fled. Detectives determined that both the pickup and a yellow front-end loader in the truck's bed alongside the ATM were stolen from a nearby construction site.