A criminal gang in Nairobi used petroleum jelly to rob millions of shillings from an ATM in one of the most baffling robbery incidents.
In a Industrial Area police station report seen by Kenyans.co.ke, thieves robbed an ATM machine at Mater Hospital, South B by smearing the CCTV camera with petroleum jelly to obstruct view.
A G4S team that had been dispatched to check on the stalled ATM discovered that the machine had been tampered with and over Ksh1 million had been withdrawn erroneously at 0730 hours.
In a nearly identical robbery incident, another ATM machine was vandalized and robbed in Mutindwa, Buruburu.
A crew Commander at G4S, George Ogiro, reported to police that they had on Thursday loaded the ATM machine along Mutindwa Road with Ksh7 million.
However, on Saturday, they received information from Barclay's bank that the ATM was not operational.
"They opened the machine and found Ksh 6,290,000 missing," the statement indicates.
On visiting the scene, it was established that the ATM was not covered by CCTV cameras. Peculiarly, the ATM was also not manned by any guard.
The third incident happened at an ATM within Kenyatta National Hospital precincts.
The system had relayed out a signal that the machine was not operational prompting G4S to dispatch maintenance crew.
On close inspection, the crew realized that the machine had been tampered with electronically.
In this incident, the thieves managed to make away with Ksh4.3 million.
Cumulatively, the thugs made away with nearly Ksh11.5 million from the 3 ATMs in a matter of hours.
