According to the police, two hooded bandits, one who was armed with a handgun, entered the Village Smoke Shop on Juniper Street late in the evening Tuesday and immediately approached the Lamassu Bitcoin ATM with one of the suspects unplugging the machine and picking it up before hauling it out the door. Atlanta Police Department Spokeswoman Elizabeth Epsy said in a statement that one of the suspects fired a shot into the smoke shop’s floor when they were confronted by employees, but fortunately no one was injured.
The Bitcoin ATM, which is used by people to buy Bitcoin by depositing money into the machine, is thought to have only had around $2,000-$3,00 in fiat currency inside of it when stolen as the machine had been emptied earlier that day; the ATM itself is valued at $7,000. According to the Village Smoke Shop employee, Amanda McCollum, the store has seen petty thefts before but Tuesday’s incident was the first time a gun was involved, let alone the Bitcoin ATM. McCollum said that the Smoke Shop will take measures to beef up security, such as hiring a nighttime security guard, putting bars on the windows, and repositioning and adding additional cameras, however despite a decent turnover from the machine, there are no plans to replace the Bitcoin ATM anytime soon. If you do happen to live in Atlanta and may have seen something, the suspects fled the store in a late 1980’s model red Chevrolet Cavalier along with two other suspects east on Linden Avenue from Willow Street.
