When the police in Shah Alam, a hour outside Kuala Lumpur, were called to investigate an explosion at a branch of local bank CIMB, they were met with the sight of two badly damaged Automated Teller Machines or ATMs. One had been blown open and the cash canister removed; the other was not open.

The cash in the cartridge that was stolen was approximately MYR349,000 (approx. GBP 65,500 , USD79,000).

The damage to the machines is estimated at MYR60,000.

The entire incident took about five minutes, a police spokesman said, having reviewed CCTV footage from inside and around the bank. The suspects fled in a white SUV.

"The Bomb Disposal Unit and Post Ballistic Investigation called to the scene believe that the ATMs were blasted using gas pressure," said the spokesman.

Unlike the tales of a JCB being used to dig an ATM out of a wall and carry it down the road in its bucket, or an ATM being wrapped with chains and dragged away behind a van, there is nothing to find amusing about this robbery. And that might be why raids on ATMs don't get much press and therefore don't attract much attention.

But such a sizeable haul in cash, which could easily have been twice as much, reminds us that themed approaches demanded by regulators compel financial crime risk and compliance teams to take their eye off the many balls that criminals keep in the air.

Image source: Royal Malaysian Police via the New Straits Times.