Germany is Europe's top target for ATM bombings

In the early hours of May 6, 2023, an explosion occurred at a bank in Bad Homburg, Germany, shattering glass up to 30 meters away. Two men entered the building and loaded an ATM with explosives. When the explosives detonated, the men stole 165,000 rupees ($180,287) in cash, jumped into a waiting getaway car and fled into the night. The theft took only minutes.
Almost every day, or rather, every night, an ATM is blown up somewhere in Germany. Europe's largest economy is a prime target for sophisticated robbery operations by organized crime groups, because so few people rob banks that it's not worth it. ATM bombings are quicker, less risky and pay out significantly more.
The Federal Criminal Office has been monitoring this type of crime since 2005, when the number of ATM explosions began to rise across Europe. “ATM explosions happen all over the world, but the severity of the explosions happening in Germany really puts them in a class of their own,” said Stefan Lessmann, head of security at ATM maker Diebold Nixdorf, the market leader for ATMs in the EU.
The reason is simple: Germany shares a border with the Netherlands, and most of the attacks are orchestrated by networks based in Amsterdam and Utrecht. The Netherlands had previously been an epicenter for such bombings, but by 2015 the country had reduced the number of ATMs in the country from 20,000 to 5,000. With few targets left at home, perpetrators turned east, to Germany.
What they found was paradise. Germany has more than 50,000 ATMs, and as the German central bank said in a January report, “cash has a special social significance.” Most of Germany's 83.3 million residents live within one kilometer of an ATM, according to a 2023 Bundesbank study. And the country's extensive network of national roads provides an easy escape route for attackers.

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