Durban - Residents and businesses in Glencoe near Dundee are feeling the pinch after the town’s only two ATMs were bombed at the weekend.
Police said on Monday that about six men had approached a security guard at a Glencoe shopping centre on Sunday and assaulted him before detonating explosive charges they had placed on an Absa ATM.
The men then removed an undisclosed amount of cash from the ATM before driving to the nearby FNB ATM, on De Beers Street, and blasting that open too.
It is believed that money from the Absa machine was stained with security dye.
A spokeswoman for Chubb security, Alison Bull, said one of company’s security guards at the centre was fired at. He took cover and called for back-up.
Locals are upset not only by the crime, but also the inconvenience it has caused them.
Cherice Torlage of Kraaines Coffee House in Karel Landman Street said the bombing of the ATMs definitely had a negative impact on business in the small town.
She said the ATMs were convenient, sparing Glencoe residents from having to travel to neighbouring Dundee to draw cash.
Andrew Meli, who manages the shopping centre and the Spar on Karel Landman Street, said: “It is very hard to say what sort of effect the bombings are going to have on businesses at the moment… these were the only ATMs for the whole town.”
An Absa spokesman, who declined to be named, said they could not disclose how much was taken from their ATM for security reasons.
Police spokesman Captain Thulani Zwane said a case of malicious damage to property had been opened, but no arrests had been made.
Daily News