They are noisy and spectacular night attacks.
The damage is often considerable, and the loot can quickly reach heights for criminals.
At the beginning of April 2020, the Grand-Est region was shaken by explosions intended to loot cash machines (ATMs).
In a few weeks, four postal agencies were targeted by these bombings with explosives.
The technique of criminals is well established.
In the middle of the night, they slip a hose connected to an oxygen cylinder in the bulkhead of a distributor.
Acetylene is sent and the explosion is resounding.
The front of the vending machine explodes and so does the trunk, if all goes as planned by the thieves.
In total, during these robberies with explosives, the team which acts in the East succeeds in grabbing more than 50,000 euros.
But the damage is much more important: in Contrexéville (Vosges), a building must be evacuated because it risks collapsing, in Vittel (Vosges), several tenants discover their walls dangerously cracked and must move ...
In June 2020, investigators from the Central Office for the Fight Against Traveling Crime (OCLDI) take up the case.
Quickly, the experts of the gendarmerie make the distributors “speak” and direct the investigators towards a criminal group based in Haute-Marne, but very mobile.
Three men are of particular interest to the gendarmes.
Experienced criminals, they are frequently surrounded by other thugs of all kinds: some provide vehicles, others electronic boxes to start stolen cars, others are responsible for stealing or manufacturing gas cylinders, regulators and pipes needed to detonate the dispensers.
For weeks, the suspects are followed closely, observed ...
The perfect distributor exploder kit
Tuesday, January 19 in the morning, the operation is triggered.
The gendarmes of the OCLDI and of the research section of Nancy, supported by the GIGN, intervene in Haute-Marne, in Isère and in the Vosges.
Seven men, aged between 31 and 50, are taken into police custody.
At the home of the suspects, investigators discover the perfect distributor exploder kit: balaclavas, regulators and several gas cylinders as well as balaclavas or stolen vehicles - one of them was buried on the property. 'one of the criminals awaiting a new act.
A tamarind monkey, a protected animal, was also discovered.
Six of the suspects were indicted and three of them remanded in custody.
In the past six months, numerous criminal groups responsible for ATM attacks have fallen across the country.
Groups which are "all more or less linked, but without necessarily being in direct contact", underlines a source close to the file.
In September 2020, three criminals from the Lyon region were arrested in particular after increasing the attacks in the Rhône or Ain.
They had been arrested on their return to France after attacks in Switzerland.
A few weeks later, in October 2020, six members of the traveling community were arrested by the OCLDI in Isère or Ain after tearing up a distributor in Haute-Garonne.
