A police investigator stands next to an exploded ATM at a bank branch. Daniel Bockwoldt/dpaAccording to one report, around 450 ATMs were blown up in Germany this year.
This is an all-time high for this offence, the Sunday edition of Die Welt newspaper reported in an article previewed by the dpa.
The newspaper refers to the participants in the conference of interior ministers of the 16 German Länder, which was held in Munich and ended on Friday.
Fewer ATMs were blown up in previous years: 414 in 2020 and 381 in 2021. Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius spoke of 500 “committed and attempted crimes” nationwide in 2022, according to the report.
Although the number of blown up ATMs in Germany continues to rise, interior ministers at their meeting refrained from binding requirements for banks to protect the money. For now, they would continue to rely on voluntary action.
Die Welt reported in reference to the ministerial conference that bombings are now increasingly being committed with explosives. This is a new and disturbing development, she said, as criminals have used gas mixtures for attacks in the past.
Oliver Huth, regional chairman of the Association of German Criminal Investigators (BDK) in North Rhine-Westphalia, told the paper that people in the vicinity of the crime scene were in grave danger: “Pedestrians have already been injured, metal parts have affected the children’s rooms, and the houses were no longer habitable”.
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