Digger Robbers Strike Again

Robbers who use construction site mechanical diggers have struck again.

The thieves caused substantial damage to a post office in Co Down early this morning by driving a digger into the rear of the building.

The latest such attack - at Main Street in Saintfield - has seen a change in tactics with the culprits now moving the location closer to the city, instead of a remote rural location,

It happened at 3.30am and saw them remove a large safe from the premises and escape with an undisclosed sum of cash.

Considerable structural damage resulted and the building next to the post office was also damaged in the raid.

There has been an ongoing series of such raids with one - last month - resulting in the removal of an ATM safe at a border supermarket.

It also happened very early in the morning and the thieves escaped with the safe containing a large quantity of cash following the raid at the Clones Road, Newtownbutler.

There have been numerous attacks of this kind across Ireland.

Things are so bad that the Gardaí's Organised Crime Unit and armed regional response units have stepped up patrols in response to the ongoing spate of digger-attacks on the reinforced bunkers that protect automated teller machines.

During July, Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy met senior officers in Dublin to finalise a strategy to tackle criminal gangs carrying out raids.

The move was on foot of the sixth such raid in The Republic to have been carried out in the past eight weeks.

The criminals' success rate is improving, on both sides of the Irish border.

Last year the PSNI investigated an attack where a bulldozer was used in a failed ram-raid on an ATM cash machine.

Last September's incident was the second such attempted robbery in Co Tyrone in less than a fortnight.

The heavy digger was driven into the side of a Spar shop beside Kelly's Inn on the main road west toward Enniskillen, in Garvaghey, outside Ballygawley.

While extensive damage was caused to the premises, a PSNI spokeswoman later said neither the cash machine nor any money was taken.

The attempt followed one where a similar digger was used to demolish a wall in nearby Carrickmore in an attempt to steal an ATM machine.

The safe containing the cash for the machine, which police thought had been stolen in that incident, was actually left buried under the rubble.

However, the crooks appear to have refined their methods and are getting away with the reinforced safe on more and more occasions.

The latest development - being so close to Belfast - and in a much more heavily populated area, marks a fresh twist in the method being used, and will have side-stepped police resources being dedicated to targeting more remote areas.

See: ATM Gangs Targeted

See: Police Slammed Over ATM Ram-Raid

See: Digger Wrecks Shop In Second Failed ATM Ram-Raid

(BMcC)