Exploding cash machines

last updated 8 January 2015

Johannesburg

Thieves in South Africa have been blowing up ATMs to get at the cash inside. Police say the tactic is a South African innovation: In most other countries, criminals haul away the entire machine and pry it open in privacy. South Africa is unique in having one of the world’s widest income disparities between rich and poor, plus a vast supply of powerful mining explosives. So far, the criminals have tended to use either too little dynamite to open the safe, or so much that the bills are blown to bits. “They relatively seldom get their hands on the money,” said Ian Janse van Vuuren of the Banking Risk Information Center. “They’re still in the experimental phase.”