A bid to smash into a bank automated teller machine using a backhoe could be a first in Cayman’s annals of crime.
Police said robberies similar to the failed bid to break into the ATM at Countryside Shopping Village in Savannah using an industrial digger had not been seen “in recent years”.
A spokesman added, “There have been two other instances since 2022, where persons attempted to gain access to ATMs, but these involved handheld tools, as opposed to heavy equipment.”
British-based Barclays Bank is thought to have been the first to introduce ATMs to Cayman in the 1980s as it started to computerise its business across the Caribbean.
The ATM operated by the Credit Union at the Countryside complex was targeted in the early hours of 5 Oct.
Police said the would-be thieves tried to smash their way through the glass-fronted booth using the backhoe to get at the ATM, but fled empty-handed in a white pick-up truck.
The yellow backhoe was later found to have been stolen at another location.
The first recorded use of the phrase “ram raid” was in a newspaper in Newcastle, England, in 1987 and it has since been included in dictionaries, such as the Oxford and Cambridge.
Using trucks, construction equipment and other heavy machines to smash into shops or ATMs is not uncommon in the UK.
Many high value businesses or banks have now installed concrete or steel bollards outside their premises to thwart attacks.
A digger was used to smash into a supermarket in the Nottinghamshire village of Cropwell Bishop less than two weeks ago.
The machine and a looted cash machine taken from inside the shop were found abandoned in the car park.
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