Thieves burn ATM safe and walk away with cash
AN ATM within the compound of a company in Petchaburi province was robbed by two men who opened it by burning the machine’s safe door for 20 minute with fire from a gas cylinder they had brought along with them, Matichon newspaper said today (May 20).
Petchaburi police rushed to the scene of the robbery at 5 a.m. where they met the company’s guard, Somsuan Sanmern, 53, whose left hand had been cut by the two robbers.
Somsuan said it was around 4 a.m. in the morning when he heard two loud sounds from the Siam Commercial Bank ATM booth which is just 50 meters away from his booth next to the gate.
He walked over and asked the two men, who were wearing crash helmets with visors covering their faces, what they were up to. Instead of replying the two of them beat him up and one of them cut his left hand while the other trained what seemed to be a pistol at him.
He did what they told him to and went and sat in his booth with his arms raised above his head while one of them kept the pistol trained at him.
The other robber broke open padlock at the rear of the ATM booth and then used fire from a gas cylinder to burn the safe. After 20 minutes the safe door opened and he got all the money out and put it in his bag.
He added that the robber who burnt open the safe door even came an drank water from his flask midway through the job and before leaving apologized for harming him.
Police as yet do not know how much money was stolen because the bank is still checking but pointed out that the two robbers were very well prepared and could have carried out such robberies before.
They collected the evidence the robbers left behind, a pair of red leather gloves, one gray fabric glove, a crowbar, pliers and a 500 baht note with burn marks on it and will also be checking CCTV footage to track them down.
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Top: The ATM booth which was robbed early this morning. Photo: Matichon
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