Man jailed for £40,000 theft from cash machines across England
West Yorkshire Police said Ivascu caused damage valued at over £60,000 to the cash machines which he tampered with.Matei admitted theft and criminal damage to 483 machines and was jailed for two years and three months when he appeared at Leeds Crown Court in February. Ivascu faced the same charges together with an additional 62 thefts and criminal damage relating to ATM incidents which took place in Merseyside.Police said Ivascu would carry out the process while Matei kept lookout and provided cover so that people could not see what was happening.An investigation into the pair's activities was launched by the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit (YHROCU) after a spate of thefts from cash machines in West Yorkshire.But officers from the YHROCU's Proactive Economic Crime Team soon established the pair were carrying out their activities all over the country in several police force areas.
They were arrested in Nottingham in 2023 after CCTV footage showed them at hundreds of locations.Speaking after the sentencing, economic crime investigator Neil Bottomley of the YHROCU's Proactive Economic Crime Team said: "We received reports of a number of incidents where two men were targeting cash points in Yorkshire, but it soon became very clear while we were piecing together their activities that they were active on a nationwide scale."The pair were committing thefts from ATMs across most of the country and leaving a trail of damage to the machines behind them."Several other forces assisted us as part of this investigation."Ivascu and Matei were nothing short of prolific and I'm pleased that we have been able to finally bring them to justice and put them behind bars."Three YHROCU officers were commended by the judge for their role in the investigation.The pair committed offences in 27 of England's 40 force areas, including Avon & Somerset, Bedfordshire, Derbyshire, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Hampshire, Humberside, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside and the Metropolitan Police area.They also targeted North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumbria, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Thames Valley, Warwickshire, West Mercia, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Wiltshire.
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