Bungling ATM thieves blow up bank statement machine

"Not very clever" bank thieves have blown up an automated statement printer in Berlin instead of the ATM they were hoping to empty.

In a laconic statement auf Deutsch titled "Shredding differently" (who says Germans have no sense of humour?), the local cops said: "Presumably not very clever criminals succeeded in forcibly opening a vending machine in Siemensstadt. Contrary to what was intended, this was not an ATM but an automated bank account statement printer."

After being alerted by a local resident who heard "a loud bang", the Alte Wilhelm turned up and found the "almost completely destroyed device" in the bank's lobby, along with two damaged – but unbreached – ATMs.

"At first sight, however, the perpetrators had not obtained money," said the po-faced polizei.

In Germany cash machines do not normally show the account balance. Instead separate machines, known as Kontoauszuege, print your bank balance for you.

The German outpost of top-notch foreign news folk The Local, which originally spotted the police statement, noted that Germans seem to make a habit of bizarre failed robberies.

Leipzig author Frank Wündsch, author of Bier, Geld und Tomaten (Beer, Money and Tomatoes), tried to copy the plot of his crime novel by holding up his local Sparkasse bank – and wound up with a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence for his ham-fisted efforts, which included using a bicycle as a getaway vehicle. ®