Watch Two Alleged Thieves Walk out of a Mall with a Bitcoin ATM

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Sead Fadilpašić

Journalist

Sead Fadilpašić

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Sead specializes in writing factual and informative articles to help the public navigate the ever-changing world of crypto. He has extensive experience in the blockchain industry, where he has served...

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June 26, 2023 06:54 EDT

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Two men entered a mall in Lynnwood, Washington earlier this month and apparently strolled out with a Bitcoin ATM, a security footage captured on August 3 showed.

The alleged thieves casually went into the mall, then immediately went back out. Several minutes later, after the stores had closed at 9 p.m., but the mall itself was still open, the men returned, spent a few minutes inside, and then walked out with the ATM covered with a moving blanket.

They proceeded to put the machine into the van they had parked on the parking lot, which is then captured by a different camera moving away from the mall.

The most surprising thing in this story is not the theft itself – as outrages thefts happen all the time – but the fact that allegedly not a single person, mall security included, doubted these men or realized this was a robbery in progress, most likely taking them for staff of some sort. Reportedly nobody realized this was a theft until the following week. Perhaps they were fooled by these men’s nonchalant attitude, but that remains a mystery.

“How they moved the machine, how rapid it was, without causing disturbance or damage, they knew what they were doing,” James Nelson, Deputy Chief of Police at City of Lynnwood, told a local TV station. “They didn’t draw attention to themselves. They hid in plain sight.”

Meanwhile, blockchain financial technology company CoinMe, which owns this particular ATM, said that they never had a kiosk stolen in more than five years they’ve been in operation across the country. The police contacted them following the incident to doublecheck that those were indeed thieves and not contract employees, but the company confirmed the ATM was stolen, Nelson said.

Watch the video below:

Today, there are over 5,000 Bitcoin ATMs across the globe, according to Coin ATM Radar. When the first Bitcoin ATM was installed in Vancouver, Canada in 2013, Bitcoin was still a largely unknown phenomenon. Fast forward to 2019, Bitcoin and Bitcoin ATMs are seemingly everywhere.

Read more: How to Launch a Bitcoin ATM Business