RICHARDSON — Police are looking for a group of men caught on tape in a smash-and-grab.
The video shows a brazen group of robbers ramming a stolen truck through the window of the Ice House Beverages store on Coit Road in Richardson early Monday morning.
They were after an ATM, but missed on the first try... so they tried again until they slammed directly into the machine.
"It was scary," said store manager Chris Lalani. "Thank God nobody was here."
Police say the heist was well planned; after using the stolen truck to break in, the group of men dragged the 300 lb. money machine through the debris to a waiting stolen van.
"There's more victims to this than what you see initially," said Richardson police spokesman Officer Kevin Perlich. "You've got the victims whose vehicles are stolen — you have a van owner and a pickup truck owner; you've got the victim who's the actual business owner that's going to have to get all this stuff fixed. And there's individuals that own these ATMs, and so that ATM was destroyed and stolen, and he's going to have to have that replaced.
Police in North Texas have been dealing with smash-and-grab crime for a while, but after a lull there has been a recent upswing.
Small business owners want potential thieves to know that the ATM machines don't have that much cash inside; sometimes only a few hundred dollars. But the crimes have a large price tag for stores, some of which have been forced to declare bankruptcy after being targeted.
"It's like hard to survive," Lalani said. "It's like $10,000-$15,000 damage to the store, and we have to pay out of our pocket."
Police said the ATM thieves wore gloves and some made an effort to hide their faces; but others can be seen on the surveillance footage.
Police said they found the stolen van and the ATM in the Fair Park area of Dallas. They suspect the same group of men may be involved in other crimes.
E-mail rlopez@wfaa.com
