Thieves use tow strap, pickup to steal ATM from convenience store

Thieves brazenly used a tow strap to pull an ATM out through the front door of a Lufkin convenience store while the business was open in the early morning hours of May 11, and Lufkin Crime Stoppers is asking for the public's help in identifying the two suspects.

According to a bulletin on the Lufkin Crime Stoppers website, the ATM, or Automated Teller Machine, was stolen from the Love's convenience store on U.S. Highway 59 North in Angelina County on May 11.

"This week's Crime of the Week case takes us to a convenience store, Loves, on Highway 59 North in Angelina County," the Crime Stoppers bulletin states. "There, around 3:00 a.m. on May 11, thieves took the term 'mobile banking' to its extreme by stealing an ATM from inside the store."

Security video from the store shows a green or blue, four-door Ford pickup stopping outside the entrance to the store. The video also shows a man wearing a red hoodie enter the building carrying a tow strap.

In the surveillance video, the suspect wraps the strap around a free-standing ATM that was mounted near the doors while a man near the store's counter watches and does nothing.

The other end of the strap was hooked to the truck, and the ATM was dragged out of the building when the driver pulled away," the bulletin states. "Once outside, and out of view of the cameras, the small ATM could be loaded into the bed of the truck."

Store employees said that the suspect who entered the store carrying the tow strap and the driver of the pickup were both black men. The truck, thieves, and ATM were last seen heading north on Highway 59.
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