Two armed raiders escaped with a "substantial" sum of cash, believed to be around €200,000, when they held up two security men making a delivery to an ATM machine at the former Bank of Ireland branch at the junction of Clontarf Road and Vernon Avenue in Dublin on Saturday afternoon.
The raid, the latest in a series of such crimes over the past two years, was carried out by two young men who had firearms - or imitation firearms - and then ran off carrying the bags of cash. It is believed a third man was waiting nearby in a car and drove them away from the scene.
The ATM is in a lobby in the bank which was closed over a year ago. It is believed the machine had been under surveillance for some time by the raiders to ascertain the movements of the staff charged with refilling it.
The two raiders surprised the security delivery staff at 9.20 a.m. as they arrived with cash.
Raids on security companies delivering cash to banks and ATM machines have once again become a regular feature of armed robbery in the State.
On May 1st, raiders used a recovery truck and chains to haul an Ulster Bank ATM from its wall mounting at a Carlow filling station. They took the machine to farmland outside the town but were unable to prise it open and were left empty-handed for their efforts.
On April 10th, two armed and masked men escaped with €100,000 when they held up security staff delivering cash to a Bank of Ireland ATM in Limerick.
The men, armed with a shotgun and an iron bar, held up the Securicor staff and made off after locking the security men in a room off the ATM kiosk.
The stocking of ATM machines with new euro notes at the end of last year and start of this year prompted a rash of raids on security vans, banks and ATM deliveries. On January 2nd, raiders in Limerick jammed an ATM with glue and then held up staff when they came to fix it.
It is believed the raiders escaped with another substantial amount of cash.