This ATM robbery using a digger took place in Northern Ireland, not South Africa
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on April 15, 2021 at 14:22
- 3 min read
- By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa
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The Facebook post, shared more than 1,200 times since July 26, 2020, includes a three-minute grainy video that appears to be security footage outside a convenience store.
In the footage, a bright yellow excavator is seen ploughing through the wall of the store in an attempt to remove the ATM. After several tries, the culprit succeeds, and more accomplices in a dark vehicle join to help the heist.
“The greatest heist of South Africa”, the post’s caption reads.
Comments under the post are mixed, with some Facebook users believing that the robbery took place in South Africa but most not convinced.
What happened where?
A few seconds into the video, a blue sign on the right side of the wall reads “O’Kane’s Off Licence”.
A Google search of “O'Kanes Off Licence ATM robbery” finds several news reports (here and here) about a theft in Northern Ireland.
According to reports, the digger was stolen and used to rip the ATM from the exterior wall of a petrol station called O’Kane’s Centra Off Licence in Derry, Northern Ireland during the early hours of April 7, 2019.
Security cameras around the station captured the scene. The digger was then used to drop the ATM safe into a van that had its roof removed.
At the time, police said the robbery was part of a spate of ATM thefts in the region.
While the claim is incorrect about the location, South Africa does experience frequent ATM attacks.
The annual crime stats 2019 report by the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) found that there were 287 ATM attacks in 2019, a slight decrease from 314 the previous year.
Sixty percent of ATM attacks “were unsuccessful due to dye stain technology as well as prompt responses from ATM monitoring teams.”
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