Rapid response by local authorities early Thursday morning may have helped end an international two-man hit squad that has been defrauding financial institutions nationwide by attacking automatic teller machines and stealing cash from them through fraud.
St. Joseph Township Police Lt. Randy Leng says that officers from his team were dispatched at 2:34am Thursday morning, March 15th, to the United Federal Credit Union Training Center located at 2580 South Cleveland Avenue regarding an incident involving an ATM located at that building.
When police arrived just minutes later, they successfully tracked and apprehended two men from Venezuela following their unsuccessful attempt to defraud the ATM by stealing funds from it.
Leng was assisted by the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department’s Road Patrol, by Lincoln Township Police, the St. Joseph Department of Public Safety and by the St. Joseph office of the FBI in the investigation.
The investigation showed that both Venezuelans have been involved in similar ATM incidents across the United States, and they are currently being held in the Berrien County Jail on multiple state charges as the investigation continues.
Nobody was hurt in the early morning incident, as nobody was on site at the training center at the time of the ATM attack.
