At least two burglars ripped a hole in the roof of Abello’s Deli at 72 Tokeneke Rd. in the wee hours of Monday, June 8, dragged the ATM machine into a walk-in cooler and ripped it open to get $1,700 in cash.
Darien police said the burglary, which was completed by 1 a.m., was well-thought out, although images of the burglars were captured by the store’s surveillance video cameras. The wrecked cash machine was worth even more than the money it held — $2,200.
According to police:
The burglars used a ladder the store had in the back of the building to get to the roof, then it probably took them about 45 minutes to rip it open.
The burglars then uprooted the machine from the floor, where it was bolted down about 15 feet from the front door, and dragged it into the walk-in cooler, where they had more privacy to make noise and wouldn’t be seen.
Once in there, they opened up the machine with a crowbar or perhaps a crate-opening tool. The machine is owned by Superior Amusement of Milford.
Once they had the cash, they left the building through a side door that doesn’t have an outside handle. The door closed behind them as the alarm system was triggered at about 1 a.m.
Darien police stopped by the building and Superior Amusement was contacted, but the company didn’t have a keyholder available at that time to let police in the building, so the burglary wasn’t discovered until the next morning.
At 5:30 a.m. on Monday, workers arriving at the store noticed the ATM was missing. Later, they found it in the walk-in cooler.
A similar ATM break-in occurred at Duchess Restaurant in Darien in the past, and similar incidents have occurred in other Fairfield County communities. Darien police detectives have released an image from one of the surveillance camera videos to other police agencies, and if that doesn’t help the investigation enough, they may release the picture to the public.