Police operation (symbol image)
Photo: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/ DPA
Three men are said to have planned to blow up an ATM in central Hesse - and have been arrested.
The Dutch nationals drove from the Netherlands to Germany in a high-powered vehicle on Wednesday night, according to the Hessian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) and the Frankfurt am Main Public Prosecutor's Office.
According to information from the Dutch police, the German officers caught the men in the Bad Nauheim area in the Wetterau district.
Investigators found explosives and tools in the car.
The suspected men, aged between 25 and 31, are said to belong to a criminal group that specializes in blowing up ATMs.
men in custody
Investigators accuse the men of planning a bomb explosion and conspiring to commit a crime.
Pre-trial detention was ordered on Thursday.
The seized explosives were detonated in a controlled manner.
For a long time, ATMs have been blown up again and again in many regions of Germany, especially in the western federal states, especially North Rhine-Westphalia.
As can be seen from a corresponding situation report by the Federal Criminal Police Office, 268 cases were counted nationwide in 2020 in which perpetrators successfully caused an explosion.
Compared to the previous year, this was an increase of almost 23 percent.
About two-thirds of all suspects are traveling perpetrators from the Netherlands, it is said.
ptz/dpa