ATM stolen with a backhoe

For the second time in two years, thieves used a backhoe to steal an automated teller machine from a bank in Prince William County, authorities said yesterday.

Police said the backhoe was stolen from a construction site early Saturday in Lorton, about a mile away from the Bank of America branch on Old Bridge Road in Woodbridge. The backhoe was found behind the bank shortly after the theft occurred at about 3 a.m.

Police would not say how much money was in the ATM, but reported that the machine was valued at about $55,000.

“The ATM machine alone is a big loss for the bank, not to mention the amount of money inside,” said Officer John Bogert, a county police spokesman.

Police said no one has been arrested in the case. Surveillance tapes showed two men wearing bandannas near the bank about the time of the theft, police said.

Officer Bogert said yesterday that the theft involved a degree of planning. The thieves knew the location of the backhoe and how to manage it and that it was capable of dislocating an ATM, he said.

Officer Bogert said using a backhoe to steal the ATM took about 5 to 10 minutes, but retrieving the money isn’t simple.

“It’s not easy at all — it’s no different than stealing a safe. That’s what it is: a big, automated safe,” Officer Bogert said. “It’ll definitely take time … but if you have it in your basement for a while you can do it.”

The robbery comes almost two years after several thieves used a backhoe and a dump truck to pry an ATM out of its base at a bank in the Lake Ridge area of Prince William County.

In that case, the thieves on July 16, 2003, tried to break it open by slamming it repeatedly against the pavement. Police rushed to the scene after hearing the banging. The thieves fled, without the ATM.

Earlier this year, two men chained an ATM at a High’s store in Laurel to a stolen truck and ripped it through the front entrance. In that incident, police said, the same two men stole a Dodge Caravan and used it to crash through the front of a furniture store off of Route 198 as a diversion a little more than an hour earlier.

Similar incidents have occurred nationwide.

Thieves took an ATM machine from the entry of a Wal-Mart in La Grande, Ore., as customers were being welcomed to the store, local authorities said. Authorities had said the ATM had been covered by a tarp for a few days before it was taken, and investigators said witnesses might have thought the machine was being removed for repairs.

Police in New York City last year investigated more than 20 thefts of ATMs, mostly from delis and convenience stores. Police in Southern California investigated more than a dozen thefts of ATMs in 2003.