What I've noticed is American thieves seem to use a brute force approach when they want to empty an ATM. Truck, forklift, crowbar and sledge; that sort of thing. But just like the rest of industry, crime has innovations and adopts new technologies and ideas. This might well be such an adoption.
>What I've noticed is American thieves seem to use a brute force approach
i think it is important that in US people with mid-education/IQ/life skills/from working class family/etc... have much more opportunities and thus the path of traditional crime (like robberies, etc...) is much less appealing.