A man with an address in Northern Ireland has been arrested south of the border in Co. Monaghan as part of an investigation into a series of ATM thefts and attempted thefts in the area last year.
Garda officers attached to Monaghan Garda Station, supported by the Special Detective Unit (SDU), arrested the man, aged in his 20s, yesterday, Monday, January 6 in Castleblayney, just to the south of the border, for an offence contrary to Section 73 of Ireland’s Criminal Justice Act 2006.
He is currently being detained at Monaghan Garda Station under Section 50 of the same act.
Also, in relation to the same investigation, officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) carried out a search in the Crossmaglen area of Co. Armagh.
The Gardaí and PSNI are working together under the Joint Agency Task Force (JATF). The task force comprises a number of authorities and organisations in Ireland and the UK.
These include, on the UK side, the PSNI; HM Revenue and Customs; Home Office Immigration Enforcement; and the National Crime Agency; and on the Irish side, the Gardaí; Revenue Commissioners, the Garda National Immigration Bureau; and the Criminal Assets Bureau.
The JATF is designed to facilitate cross-border co-operation across a range of policing areas.
The spring months of 2019 saw a spate of ATM robberies on both sides of the border, with a number of counties affected.
Typically, the criminals involved would pull the ATM out of a wall with (sometimes stolen) plant machinery, before loading it on to a getaway vehicle.
The series of incidents progressed to the point where Gardaí were forced to issue a warning to plant machinery owners in the border region to make sure their machines were stored securely and not left in an area that was easily accessible.
