Spanish National Police have arrested a man wanted in Germany for an ATM theft involving a thermal lance and explosive materials, in which €264,000 in cash was stolen from a Deutsche Bank machine in Berlin.
The arrest occurred on May 2 at the Port of Almería, as the suspect attempted to board a ferry bound for Nador, Morocco.
As reported by La Vanguardia, the man, accompanied by his brother and driving a van, was intercepted by officers from the Border Unit of the Provincial Police Station in Almería. The arrest was the result of a coordinated surveillance effort launched after the Sirene-Spain Office issued an alert indicating the suspect might attempt to flee the Schengen Area through Spain.
According to Spanish authorities, the officers located the suspect at the vehicle departure line at the border post and confirmed the validity of the European Arrest Warrant issued by German authorities. He was then taken into custody without incident.
Police say the suspect was involved in a violent ATM robbery on the night of April 17, 2024, in Berlin. During the incident, he and an accomplice, who died that same night, used a thermal lance — a tool that heats and melts steel in the presence of pressurized oxygen to create an explosion — to breach the cash dispenser. In addition to the substantial cash theft, the operation caused an estimated €30,000 in property damage.
At the time of his arrest, the man was found to be in possession of just over €6,000 in cash. He was transferred to the police station, where specialized officers from the Unit Against Illegal Immigration Networks and Document Forgeries handled the formal processing of his detention.
The suspect now faces extradition to Germany, where he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Spanish authorities have confirmed that he has already been brought before the appropriate judicial body for proceedings related to his extradition.
ATM thefts are a prominent modus operandi for migrant gangs operating within Germany and neighboring countries.
Banks operate nearly 100,000 ATMs located throughout Germany, with the machines routinely containing between €50,000 and €100,000. Criminal gangs are taking advantage of this, and they are willing to use extreme methods to gain access to this money.
“This extensive network has, in part, drawn organized criminal groups from abroad, seeing the density of ATMs and Germany’s demand for cash access as factors in their favor,” noted a spokesperson for the German Banking Industry Committee last year.
In 2022, government statistics indicated that organized crime gangs blew up 496 such machines, a record high.
Another 461 ATM robberies were recorded in 2023.
Es knallt in Deutschland – fast täglich wird ein #Geldautomat in die Luft gesprengt. Auch in #BadenWürttemberg nehmen die brutalen #Überfälle zu, die #Polizei wirkt bisweilen ratlos. #zursachebadenwuerttemberg pic.twitter.com/Vn9B8AGP7y
— SWR Aktuell BW (@SWRAktuellBW) October 16, 2020“We see ATM blasts all over the world, but the intensity that we experience in Germany is really in a league of its own,” Stefan Lessmann, head of security at ATM-maker Diebold Nixdorf, said previously when asked about the problem.
