Watch a Thief Try to Smash into an ATM Using a Stolen Backhoe

Look, robbing an ATM is hard. We should all know this by now. This isn't Terminator 2—you can't just roll up to your neighborhood cash machine and hack the system using your AlphaSmart or whatever. Money is sealed up nice and tight inside that metal box, and no amount of ingenuity is going to get it out and into your hands without a debit card and a working PIN.

Last month, some would-be thieves tried to bust into an ATM using a blowtorch, only to light all the cash inside on fire. Now someone had an equally unsuccessful time trying to bust into one with using a stolen construction backhoe.

Maryland police are currently searching for a thief in Prince George's County who stole a backhoe, drove it five miles to a nearby bank, and went to town on the drive-thru ATM with the piece of excavating equipment, WTOP reports.

"He used the bucket to peel away the ATM's outer wrapping," Lt. Dave Coleman of the Prince George's County police told WTOP. "He was not able to get any money out of the ATM, but he caused about $10,000 worth of damage."

The whole debacle is caught on camera thanks to the bank's security system. In it, the robber repeatedly claws at at the ATM with the stolen John Deere vehicle, decimating the cash machine but never getting to the goods. It's a pretty massive failure of a robbery, but ATM manufacturers are probably already buying rights to the footage to celebrate the security of their devices in future ad campaigns. Police are currently searching for the suspect, who they believe also robbed a nearby tobacco store last March, but that time without the help of heavy construction equipment.

Maybe it's time for people to accept the fact that robbing an ATM is more trouble than it's worth and that they should stick with more lucrative illicit schemes—like smuggling mass amounts of chocolate with a Russian crime syndicate or whatever.