It is believed that the Nedbank cash machine (ATM) was blown up in the early hours of Wednesday morning in Madumeleng Filling Station.

The amount of money that was in the ATM is undisclosed, however it seems like ATM bombing has become a norm in Bolobedu and the suspects seem to be getting away with it.

It has been discovered that there’s an ATM bombing syndicate that goes around bombing ATM’s around Bolobedu, as this is not the first ATM bombed in the area. A standard bank ATM was bombed in February 2020, and earlier this year around March, another Standard Bank ATM was bombed at Riverside filling station in Ga-Matipane, leaving community members in distress of where they will start withdrawing their social grant money, as the ATM was a walking distance away unlike other ATM’s where they use transport or have to walk several kilometer to access their grant.

The third ATM was bombed  in Ga-Mokwakwaila Filling Station earlier this year, and got taken away by the service provider, leaving customers suffering due to these practices. The ATM’s were serving the people Ga-Moroko, Ga-Femane, and Ga-Mohokoni as it was the closest in terms of withdrawing cash whenever they wanted to, also helped the elders in accessing grant money avoiding long ques at SASSA and Post Offices.

A number of residents around Madumeleng stated that at around 02:00 to 03:00 they heard loud bang noises that sounded like explosions and gunshots. “I heard gunshots around 02:00-03:00 am, I get that December is around the corner but our brothers hustle in a wrong way, the ATM helped us a lot.”said one of the residents. No arrests have been made thus far pending investigation.