SUBANG JAYA: Three minutes was all it took for four men to make off with an entire automated teller machine (ATM) at the Subang Jaya Komuter station in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Subang Jaya deputy police chief Supt Tan Ah Chua said the suspects, armed with a custom--made cable, spray cans and a heavy vehicle of some kind, were slick and seemed experienced as they managed to pull off the robbery in that short time.
Met at the scene, Tan said the suspects, believed to be in their 30s, all wearing hats and hand towels to cover their faces, turned up at the ATM machine at about 3.30am.
A CCTV recording that police recovered later showed that while two suspects tied the cable to the ATM, the other two sprayed security cameras in the surrounding area.
"After the cable was tied to the ATM, the suspects used a heavy vehicle to cart the machine away. We are not sure whether they used a lorry or a pickup truck as the CCTV did not cover the compound outside where the vehicle may have been parked," Tan said.
Tan said although the suspects had sprayed the CCTV cameras, their images had still been captured. Checks with the bank revealed the ATM machine had contained RM 47,900.
Tan said that police were only alerted to the theft at 6.30am when a bank officer had to carry out upgrading work at the machine and found it missing.
There were no security guard on duty at the time as his services had been terminated on June 1.
"We are investigating if these four were from the same gang that had hit other ATM machines, last month," he added.
On May 25, 10 men escaped with RM60,000 after taking an hour to drill into the an ATM at Universiti LRT Station on Jalan Kerinchi.
Arriving just after midnight, the men had gone into a cubicle containing one ATM before breaking through a wooden door that led to another ATM, which they then drilled into before running away with the cash.
A second bid to steal from another ATM machine at UO Superstore in Jalan Pantai Murni, Pantai Dalam, occurred five days later, but the robbery attempt failed. The suspects managed to cut the ATM's electrical cable but could not penetrate the machine.
