SOLON, Ohio — The Solon Police Department is searching for two individuals who were caught on video tampering with an ATM in Solon on Thursday morning.
An alarm went off around 4:30 a.m. at the Citizens Bank on SOM Center Road. Surveillance video showed two masked, hooded individuals dressed in black tampering with the machine.
"They walked up to our ATM at the Solon Citizens Bank, and they were able to quickly open the thing, so it didn't take them long at all to get inside of it and access something. They were not successful in getting any money out of it," said Solon Police Lt. Bill Vajdich.
The suspects left before officers arrived, and now police are trying to determine exactly what they were after, or whether it was a pre-operational visit.
"We could only kind of speculate exactly what they were trying to do. Were they trying to install some sort of hardware for the sake of future tracking of people's ATM cards?" said Vajdich. "What I mean by that is that somebody might come out ahead of what they're actually trying to do, just to kind of scout it out."
News 5's Nadeen Abusada asked the lieutenant if the department had ever seen people tampering with an ATM like this before.
Vajdich said, "It's not often for Solon to get any ATM tampering."
The ATM has been shut down for now.
News 5 reached out to Citizens Bank for comment, and they said, "We’re aware of the incident and are working with local law enforcement."
"Citizens Bank is not going to open that thing back up for business before they're absolutely sure that everything is going to be secure," Vajdich said.
Police urge anyone with information to contact the Solon Police Department at 440-248-1234.
Vajdich said to always be alert when using an ATM.
"Try to be cautious, pay attention for the obvious. You see something that looks not right to you, don't use it," Vajdich said.
