Man jailed for £40,000 theft from cash machines

Florin Ivascu, 40, worked alongside Andrei Matei, 35, who was jailed in February

A man who travelled across England stealing about £40,000 from more than 500 cash machines has been jailed for four years.

Florin Ivascu, 40, worked alongside Andrei Matei, 35, to jam open the cash dispenser on the ATMs so they could take money from inside.

Ivascu admitted 545 thefts from cash machines and criminal damage, and was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Thursday. Matei was jailed for two years in February after admitting similar charges.

The Romanian nationals - Ivascu of Dagenham, London and Matei of Crumpsall, Manchester, will also face deportation once they are released.

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.

CCTV footage showed the men at locations across the UK

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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