Texas men charged in Roseville ATM ‘hook and chain’ heist, a growing problem across U.S.

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

Five Texas men are accused of using a stolen pickup and a chain to yank an ATM from its foundation outside a Roseville bank early Tuesday in a heist that was foiled by an alarm and an officer who pulled up to the scene.

Law enforcement and banking security officials say these “hook and chain attacks” are gaining in popularity among thieves in the U.S. and rising to unprecedented numbers.

Roseville Deputy Police Chief Joe Adams said Thursday the FBI is among law enforcement agencies working to see whether the Roseville suspects are tied to a Texas-based organized group known as the “Hook and Chain Gang” carrying out the thefts across the U.S.

“The hard part is going to be whether these five guys are the gang or whether there are like 100 guys doing this,” Adams said.

In the Roseville attack, one suspect was captured after he sped away from Great Southern Bank, across from Rosedale Center, in the stolen pickup and crashed. The others were tracked back to a nearby hotel and arrested after a standoff with a SWAT team.

The men, all from Houston, were charged Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court with aiding and abetting felony theft and aiding and abetting felony damage to property. One also faces motor vehicle theft and fleeing police charges. They appeared in court Thursday on the charges and were granted public defenders, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The men remained jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Chains dragging, sparks flying

According to the criminal complaints against the men:

A Roseville police officer went to the bank at 1875 County Road B2 just after 4 a.m. Tuesday after alarms on the ATM were triggered. The officer saw a white 2006 Ford F-250 pickup leaving the bank’s driveway with chains dragging and sparks flying as it went west County Road B2. The damaged ATM was left in the bank’s parking lot.

After the truck turned into a nearby business parking lot, the officer flipped on the squad’s emergency lights and the driver sped away, weaving and driving over a median and a large rock. The driver then bailed out of the truck, which continued moving and crashed into a parked car and bus.

The driver ran, but was taken into custody after a chase and identified as 23-year-old Kenneth Deandtray Brown. He had a green and white hotel keycard in his pocket. His cellphone’s screen showed directions to Key Inn at 2550 Cleveland Ave. N.

The pickup was running, its ignition damaged. Later, police contacted the truck’s owner who said it had been stolen sometime after Sunday.

Police went to Key Inn, where the front desk employee said four men had just entered the hotel lobby and went into a first-floor room, which Brown had rented. Surveillance footage showed the men walking into the hotel lobby after the first officer arrived at the bank.

After they ignored demands to surrender, the SWAT team was called in and a search warrant was granted by a judge. Officers entered through a room window and the suspects were arrested.

They were identified as Dekorius Durham, 22, Larry Dean Gill, 23, Christopher Eugine Merchant, 23, and Leonard Dwayne Williams, 25. They declined to be interviewed.

Brown told police he was visiting from Texas, saw an “abandoned” F-250 pickup truck and took it, the complaints read. He said that when the police tried to stop him, he became scared and fled.

The bank’s security footage showed Merchant use a crowbar on the ATM, and he and Williams attached chains onto it. At one point, Gill helped lift the ATM after it fell over.

Other video from a nearby gas station showed a dark-colored SUV going back and forth past the bank 21 times beginning about 4 a.m.

Surveillance footage from a business near Key Inn showed the SUV arriving at the hotel about 4:10 a.m. Police discovered the SUV, a black Mazda CX‐90 with Texas license plates, in the hotel parking lot. Officers saw in plain view clothes they say matched what was worn by the suspects seen in the bank surveillance footage.

The men were not able to get to any of the ATM money, said Adams, Roseville’s deputy chief.

Investigators later learned Brown and Williams were seen scoping out a credit union in St. Louis Park in the SUV about an hour before the ATM theft in Roseville. Police also were given a picture of the F-250 backed up to an ATM in St. Louis Park with chains “ready to be deployed,” the complaints read.

Lawmakers are taking notice

David Tente, an executive director at the ATM Industry Association, said ATM crime rose about 165 percent from 2021 to 2022, with the vast majority being “attacks on ATMs.”

“It got a lot worse during the pandemic, as you might imagine, and it has just kept going from there,” he said.

According to ATMMarketplace.com, the FBI reported 254 ATM thefts in 2021 — up from 229 in 2020 and 31 in 2019 — with “hook and chain attacks” accounting for most of them. A banking security official told the website that thieves consider ATMs worthwhile targets because many of them have a “weakness in the vault door that makes it easier to hook into and open” to get at the cash cassettes.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in October that the FBI had identified a group of seven Houston men who tried to rob two Chase Bank ATMs with a stolen pickup and chain in Las Vegas in February 2022. One man who was charged told local police they learned how to pull off the heists by watching YouTube videos.

In September, four men — one from Houston and three from Orlando, Fla., were sentenced to federal prison for their role in five ATM thefts at banks in Central Florida that resulted in nearly $594,000 being stolen and more than $100,000 in damage, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Lawmakers are taking notice. In September 2021, Texas became the first state to make tampering with an ATM a third-degree felony offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. Kansas, Missouri and Louisiana have since followed suit. Meanwhile, the Safe Access to Cash Act introduced in Congress last year would make all ATM crimes a felony at the federal level.

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