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Cashless ATM Stolen From Sarasota Restaurant

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By ANTHONY CORMIER

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: August 5, 2008

SARASOTA - Derek Krzypkowski got a surprise when he showed up for work Sunday morning at the Lox 'n Egg Bread Company: A window was smashed open and the ATM was missing.

The crooks, though, were in for a bigger jolt: The ATM was empty.

Detectives are trying to find the burglars and the missing cash machine, which had been shut down for many weeks and did not have a single dollar inside it.

"It even had a little yellow sign on it that said it was shut down," Krzypkowski says.

The thieves struck sometime late Saturday night, backing a pickup truck to the breakfast shop on South Tamiami Trail. Someone smashed open the window with a rock and climbed inside.

They put a tow strap around the machine -- which had been bolted down -- put the truck in drive and yanked it out of the ground, a police report says.

Detectives found the rocks used to break the window, the tire tread marks, shoe prints, even the tow strap that the thieves left behind.

And even though the burglars left a mess of glass and debris, the Lox 'n Egg was open for business later that morning -- with a piece of plywood covering the smashed window.

The machine is worth about $10,000. Krzypkowski, the restaurant's manager, shut it down some months back. Normally, the restaurant keeps the ATM running during the busy vacation season.

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