Southern California man accused of using explosives to steal from ATMs

(FOX40.COM) — A Southern California man was arrested and charged on Friday after surveillance video captured him using explosives to try and steal money from ATMs.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, the man, 44 of San Diego, drove up to an ATM outside California Coast Credit Union in San Diego around 3:30 a.m. on June 8. When he got out of his car, surveillance video showed him taking a five-gallon blue plastic container with a white spout to the front of the ATM and inserting a black polyvinyl chloride plastic hose into the ATM moments before an explosion occurred inside the device.

“Despite efforts to pull money out of the machine, [the suspect] left empty-handed,” the attorney’s office said.

San Diego police officer arrived at the credit union moments later and saw the previously mentioned pipes with two batteries taped to them.

A few weeks later, the attorney’s office said, around 2 a.m. on June 28, the suspect drove up to another ATM in Rancho Bernardo outside a First Citizen’s Bank branch in San Diego. “He then repeated the same steps…After electrical components caught fire and smoke started coming out of the ATM, [the suspect] returned and attempted to extract cash from the machine but was unsuccessful,” officials said.

After tracking the suspect and his vehicle, investigators served a search warrant at his home, which led to the discovery of gas, black powder, potassium nitrate sulfur, explosive pre-cursor chemicals, a paper that explains how to make black powder, a gun, and more.

“Fortunately, neither of these incidents resulted in injury or successful theft of cash,” U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said. “With the discovery of chemicals and equipment in the search, future attempts were also thwarted.”

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