Although the thieves made an attempt to flee, but were caught by the police after a short while when they stopped at a traffic light.
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Officers back at the bank determined the backhoe had been taken from a construction site on the corner of US 27 and Lucerne Park Road and driven through a field to the bank.
Police arrested two Clewiston, Florida men who allegedly used a stolen backhoe to steal a bank ATM from a branch in Winter Haven Florida.
The alarm went off at the ATM at bout 11 p.m. Friday. The deputy observed an ATM in the pickup truck’s bed.
Soon after the BOLO, a Polk Sheriff’s deputy saw a Ford in the area that looked suspicious.
Winter Haven police say 54-year-old Francisco Hernandez and 50-year-old Jesus Antonio Sanchez, both of Clewiston, were booked into the Polk County Jail on Saturday on grand theft charges.
The deputy pulled over the truck and and saw an ATM in the bed. Hernandez and Sanchez told him that they had been gathering scrap metal and didn’t remember where they got their items.
The approximate damage to the building housing the ATM and cost of the ATM is $100,000, and there was over $20,000 in the ATM, which did not appear to have been opened, according to police.
The police took them into custody and charged them with theft, property damage which is a first-degree felony.
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Hernandez also had a warrant for his arrest in Hendry County for a violation of probation.
