Exploding ATMs come to Canberra

What would an ATM be worth?

They certainly look expensive.

Skidbladnir said :

By the way, for anyone chasing the banks’ $50k before Christmas, I am in now way involved.
Start your search elsewhere…

Skid, I think that the fact that you are so knowledgeable on all subjects would rule you out. they would expect someone who wanted to brag about it to post with bad spelling, grammar and a lot of caps…

By the way, for anyone chasing the banks’ $50k before Christmas, I am in now way involved.
Start your search elsewhere…

checked the windows at work this morning. not a scratch. apparently, there was 200m of damage, but not directly across the road, missed us completely.

the antique shop next door has damage to one window.

OPC IT are worse off, I hope that it doesn’t effect their business too much.

Okay, I don’t know if OPC have street-pointing cameras, nor if Canberra Hobbies & Models would, now if Hansel and Gretel do, so you’ll have to make do with footage of one of the earlier Sydney attacks via LiveLeak (most of the site probably isn’t work-safe, people), and it looks like a two-gas mixture is being pumped into the ATM and then detonated.
Oxy-acetylene?
-Link to Youtube where even science teachers get handling acetylene wrong-

Note for the children: Acetylene may be cheap, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, either you or your bystanders may die or follow the example of Nobel laureate Nils Gustaf Dalén who accidentally blinded himself with projectile shards of glass, and its also an anaesthetic but fatal in large doses.
And its explosive by impact shock at greater than 15 PSI.
And will cause bystanders caught in the flameburst to catch alight at roughly 3000 degrees C.

If the problem is inherently structural, the quickest option for preventing an explosive gas buildup would be “put vents in them”.
But thats still going to need someone to determine the most secure way to put in such vents while keeping the cash acceptably out of touch.

Okay, in true RiotACT form, I’m going to say this without knowing all of the facts.
But as they’re probably classes as police intelligence at this point, we’re not likely to get a bunch of relevant facts or specifics forthcoming, especially if any or how much money is unaccounted for.

I’m not so sure they’re related to the other incidents nationally, beyond the similar method of execution, though.
If its a structural flaw thats allowing it to happen, this may well become the new method of robbing an ATM, and newer tactics have a historical tendency of being spread through importation and demonstration.
This has got media propagating it to everywhere that will listen, and its known to be effective.

Its low-technique, low-technology, with quick material gain (and an entertaining amount of destruction), and even if they can roll out a new version of the basic ATM tomorrow, there will still be a population of valid targets around for however long it takes to deploy several thousand new ATMs nationally.

Cost is low, requisite equipment is widespread, and the level of training required put it in the range of your average idiot, risk to public is low if you’re doing it in otherwise-quiet commercial areas at low-traffic times, and it takes only a matter of hours to prepare for…

Sure, some of your cash loot might be burned, but if the remaining cash is enough to turn a profit for the operation and still account for risks to executor and nearby damage to property, your average John Q Criminal could probably see this as a viable alternative to holding up the local BP.

Very good point, overlooked by me hahaha.

Instant Mash said :

Have they never heard of earning their money legitimately?

That would involve hard work, not usually a quality of most crooks.

Have they never heard of earning their money legitimately?

I was in Phillip today and a couple of the places I went to mentioned this, but I didn’t see the aftermath for myself.

What, again?