In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, a group of intrepid thieves attempted to steal an ATM machine from a Culiacán, Sinaloa, shopping center by dragging it away using a stolen tow truck. 

Police were tipped off by anonymous callers just after 5 a.m. and arrived at the scene outside the Ley Express supermarket to discover broken glass doors and the ATM abandoned in the middle of the street after the thieves had beaten it with hammers, police say, in a failed attempt to remove the cash. The tow truck was left about 30 meters away.

An investigation revealed that the would-be thieves had tied ropes around the ATM, dragging it off its base inside the shopping center with the powerful Ford truck.

It is believed the thieves were spooked by unrelated police activity in the area and fled, leaving the battered but intact ATM and its contents behind.

The incident is similar to another theft of an ATM in Culiacán on April 27 in which thieves also used a vehicle to haul off the cash machine, although that time they were successful and police recovered the ATM, empty, from the back of a van.

Source: El Debate (sp), El Universal (sp), Sinaloa Hoy (sp)