Immigrant Man Robbed At ATM Returns To Hit The Assailant With His Car, Takes Back His Debit Card And Money


You might have heard of ATM robberies before, but this one just takes the cake.

According to CBS Philadelphia, a Portuguese immigrant was withdrawing money from a Wells Fargo drive-in ATM when he was robbed at gunpoint in Philly’s Bustleton Avenue area. After the man handed over the money to the assailant, the robber reportedly fled with the cash. With the immigrant’s wife and kids in the car, he figured it would be best just to leave the scene of the crime as quickly as possible

After he returned home, however, the man realized that he had left his debit card in the ATM and decided to return to see if it was still there.

“After he leaves,” Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum of Northeast Detectives told Philly.com, “he decides to go back and look for the debit card.”

When he got back, the man expected the suspect to have left the scene.

“He wasn’t gone,” Rosenbaum said.

ATM robbery
The Wells Fargo ATM at Bustleton Avenue where the robbery took place. [Image by Google Screenshot]

The suspect, later described as a 49-year-old man, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt pulled tightly around his face and exposing only black sunglasses, was still hanging around the ATM, and he had a knife with him. The driver rammed his car into the culprit, hitting him and tossing him into the street — but not before the suspect managed to plunge his knife into the windshield of the car.

The immigrant man then got out his car and searched through the pockets of the bloodied suspect. He found his money and the debit card, and after retrieving both those things, he drove home, according to the police.

The authorities found the suspect lying on the street at around midnight, with blood seeping through the top of his hooded shirt. After a brief search, the authorities found a Cobalt less than a mile away from the ATM, with a hole in the windshield of the car. Rosenbaum said it was now that the police began connecting the dots.

When the owner of the car was questioned, he relayed the whole story of what had transpired earlier in the night. Daily Mail reports that the immigrant does not speak English, and told his story with the help of an interpreter. Police said that still images from the bank’s surveillance cameras corroborated the story of the immigrant man.

The attacker suffered severe head wounds and has been admitted to the hospital, where he will stay for at least a week. After he is discharged from the hospital, Rosenbaum said he will be charged with robbery.

Police also said that no charges will be pressed against the immigrant man unless new evidence contradicts his story.

“Seeing as he’s the victim of a robbery,” Rosenbaum said.

This is perhaps one of the very few times where a victim has returned to attack the suspect. Last month, a Brooklyn clothing shop worker chased his attackers after being bashed in the head by a group of robbers, according to the New York Post. The group of three armed robbers attacked Mahmoud Abdelraitman, 50, before swiping $4,000 worth of merchandise at Metro Sports on Flatbush Avenue in New York.

Even though injured and bleeding profusely, Abdelraitman made a run after the attackers, and with the help of cops patrolling the area, managed to nab one of them.

Though the Portuguese man’s story is slightly different from Abdelraitman’s case, what is common between the two stories is that both the robbery victims were immigrants. But while the Brooklyn shop owner had been in living in America for a while, authorities said that the victim of the ATM robbery had only been living in the United States for less than a month.

[Featured Image by Mark Makela/Getty Images]

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