These days when people are short on cash, they head for an ATM, and that's what more and more criminals are doing, but they are not just withdrawing a few bucks, as NBC's Don Teague would show us they are stealing the whole machine.

It happens so fast, surveillance cameras are usually the only witnesses. thieves armed with a stolen vehicle, crash through the front of the store, and grab the Automatic Teller Machine inside, in Dallas ATM smashing grabs are sky rocketing, 8 in January, after 77 here last year. It may just be that they feel it's a little easier for them, go steal a car, and go find a store that's got a big window on it. The latest brazen burglary, at this liquor store, I am angry, but there's nothing you can do about it, I mean it's happening everywhere.

Everywhere the only thing between criminals and thousands of dollars is a plate glass window. Experts say there are several reasons ATM smashing grabs are on the rise, but the bottom line is this: driving a car through a window like that, is easy money.
And a lot of it. Criminals have learned that freshly-stocked ATMs are a jackpot. Calculate it, be up to 25000 dollars, so it's... it's some serious money.

Stealing an ATM is considered a simple burglary, while robbing a bank is a federal crime, and moving the machine away from the window doesn't always help.

They drove through the front window and then turned left, drove along the front of the stores but the cash registers, and then ram the ATM which was in the wall at the office.

Still, sometimes the bad guys lose. They got this store's ATM, but "it was empty. I know that for sure."

For today, DDon Teague, NBC news, Dallas.