Trio Use Stolen Forklift to Remove ATM From Grocery Store

A video taken at a grocery store in Seattle shows thieves allegedly using a forklift to steal an ATM machine last month.

Security footage of the theft, which was shown in a segment by local news station KING 5, shows two people allegedly picking the lock of the store's front door, with another person driving inside the building in a forklift over to the ATM machine. Dan Schacher, who is a co-owner of the store, Ken's Market, told the station that the forklift was stolen from a nearby hardware store and that the thieves used the vehicle to pry the ATM loose. They then dragged it away, put it in a pickup truck and fled the scene. The theft took place on February 20.

"These guys seem like semi-professionals, so they were in and out before any police could come," he said according to news station. Schacher estimated that the theft resulted in roughly $2,000 in damages, and added that crime in the area has impacted businesses other than his own.

"If you just look up and down Phinney Ridge, there's boarded-up windows on a lot of businesses," he said. "We're the last of a dying breed and we are going to fight to stay open for everybody, and we're going to keep doing what we're doing."

Newsweek reached out to the Seattle Police Department for more details about the theft, but did not receive a response before publication on Sunday morning.

In separate incident in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in June, police said that thieves used a forklift to steal an ATM machine from a local bank. News station KRQE reported that police retrieved the stolen forklift, as well as $13,000 in cash that was found on the street. More than $100,000 of damage was done to the bank during the incident.

In another theft in Las Vegas in November, a man allegedly stole an ATM machine from a salon by tying it to the back of a pickup truck and driving away.

Surveillance video showed a man inside the building, with his truck idling outside of the business' entrance. The man tied what appeared to be a cable around the ATM and attached it to the back of his truck. When he drives away the machine goes crashing through the entrance of the business, shattering glass.

"I was blown away like how it happened. It's insane. I didn't see it coming; when he gets in the car and then he takes off I didn't think the whole front would come down like that," Cherish Jones, a nail tech at the spa told news station KLAS at the time.