PETALING JAYA, May 12 — Four robbers set an automated teller machine (ATM) on fire in anger after they successfully cracked it and found it empty.

The suspects thought they had the perfect target: But what they failed to realise was that the machine had been having a power supply problem and the bank had stopped loading the machine with cash for more than a week.

It did not appear as though they had attempted to break into a cash deposit machine right next to the faulty ATM.

The incident happened early yesterday morning at a bank in Jalan Ipoh.

The men arrived in a black car with tools needed to pull off the heist.

City CID chief SAC Gan Kong Meng said upon entering the bank the suspects first sprayed the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera with paint and then started using an oxy-acetylene blow torch to open the machine’s cash compartment.

“They spent some time cutting open the machine with the blow torch. The euphoria over their success suddenly turned to despair and anger when they found no money in the machine. So they torched it and left,” he said.

Police, however, obtained the vehicle registration number from CCTV cameras on other premises near the bank.

“We have already checked the address (from the car registration number) and based on our investigation we believe the suspects used a cloned vehicle registration number on the car.”

The registered owner of the car claimed he was at home the entire night and his car was also parked in his house.

Sentul Fire and Rescue department rushed to the scene after being alerted by a passer-by who saw smoke rising out of the bank. The fire was immediately put off.

On April 25, four other suspects got away with RM100,000 from an ATM machine at a mosque in Taman Muda, Gombak in a similar modus-operandi.

The suspects had also used an oxy-acetylene blow torch to cut open the machine.

Police are investigating if the same suspects were behind both cases.