So-called 'crash and grab' thefts of ATMs, like those that have been attempted in Connecticut recently, have been on the rise across the nation, industry experts say.

Thieves using vehicles to yank the machines from their bases, or trying to, such as in incidents Wednesday in Manchester and Vernon, are becoming more common. Those attempts were unsuccessful, but crooks in Milford dragged an ATM from a convenience store a day earlier. Similar crimes also were reported this week in East Granby and Wallingford.

Connecticut has 1,586 convenience stores, and there are roughly 152,000 stores in the nation. And about one-third of the 451,500 ATMs in the U.S. are located in those stores, said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Crash-and-grab ATM thefts are increasing because, as Lenard said — quoting infamous bank robber Willie Sutton — that's where the money is.

Stores have been doing an increasingly effective job in managing cash in registers, with drop safes and time releases meant to make robbing the stores less attractive, he said. So some crooks have turned to ATM thefts as a more lucrative strategy, Lenard said.

"It's the new target until it becomes more hardened and difficult to do that," he said.

When rashes of such crimes happen, Lenard said, it is usually the work of one group "working the area." Last year, police in Connejcticut said they arrested members of a New Britain-based crime ring that had stolen ATMs throughout the state, starting in 2020. Machines were reported taken in Bethel, Bristol, Coventry, Cromwell, Danbury, East Hartford, Meriden, Middletown, New Britain, Southington, Torrington, Vernon, Wallingford, and Wethersfield.

ATM crime in general has been increasing since the COVID-19 pandemic, David Tente, executive director of the ATM Industry Association, said. Crash-and-grab thefts, Tente said, are one of the more common crimes "because it's pretty easy." In some cases, cash machines are near the front of the stores and not bolted to the floor or wall, he said. Thieves have even employed stolen pay loaders and hydraulic tools, or jaws of life, commonly used by firefighters, to cut into the machines.

Some ATMs are equipped with GPS tracking devices and some even have exploding dye packs — much like some banks would hand to robbers — but those extras are expensive, Tente said. Once thieves have the machine, they can typically smash or pry it open in a short time and take the cash, although tougher types of "safes" inside the machine are available, he said.

Store owners can install steel bollards to deter thieves from using vehicles to smash their way inside, said Rob Reiter, a security consultant and co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council, which provides free resources to businesses and governments to boost public safety.

Convenience store owners across the nation have been suffering big losses, not only from stolen ATMs, but from the damage done when thieves pull machines through front glass windows and doors, Reiter said. Repairs can cost as much as $15,000, he said. At the same time, however, convenience store managers like to have ATMs to attract more customers.

Around the nation, news reports show thieves using vehicles to yank and ram ATMs free of their moorings and then torch, pry, and saw the machines open for the payoff. Crooks case locations for highway access, proximity to police stations and other factors. Crash-and-grab "ram raids" often correspond with areas where opioid use is widespread, experts agree. In Detroit and Houston, authorities have been telling store owners to either bolt ATMs to back walls or plant bollards around their buildings, Reiter said. Houston authorities even reached a point where they would not grant new ATM permits, he said.

Surveillance video has shown, Reiter wrote in an article in 2014, that "experienced thieves can smash a storefront and shove an ATM into a vehicle in less than one minute — far faster than police response times in an urban area, much less a rural one."