After the failed attempt to get money by blowing up a machine in Hofheim, the perpetrators also lost their getaway car on Tuesday morning.

As the police reported, residents in the Diedenbergen district of Hofheim were woken up shortly before 4 a.m. by a bang on Casteller Straße.

The unknown perpetrators had blown up the ATM in a financial point of the Taunus Sparkasse and the Frankfurter Volksbank, damaging a commercial building.

Witnesses then observed a black Audi that left the crime scene at excessive speed in the direction of Marxheim.

Andrea Diener

Correspondent in the Main-Taunus district

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The getaway vehicle must then have driven via the Hofheim junction onto the A 66 in the direction of Wiesbaden.

At around 4:20 a.m., the perpetrators were on the Schiersteiner Bridge in the direction of Mainz.

At Mainz-Mombach, her escape vehicle came off the road, and the massive lane divider in the middle was pushed into the oncoming lanes by the impact.

The limousine was then no longer drivable and all occupants fled.

More explosives found

The heavily damaged vehicle was examined on the spot by specialists from the State Criminal Police Office.

According to the police, it had to be ruled out that there were still dangerous explosive substances in it.

The investigations were therefore carried out with the greatest caution.

It was recommended to avoid the A643 extensively.

The criminal police also secured traces at the crime scene in Hofheim.

More explosives were found there that had not detonated.

Experts in explosive technology from the State Criminal Police Office had to detonate it around 7 a.m. in a nearby field.

A structural engineer consulted found that the building was not in danger of collapsing, the damage to the building amounts to a low six-figure amount according to initial estimates.

In the meantime, perpetrators in automatic demolitions usually use solid explosives that trigger an enormous pressure wave and can cause considerable damage to buildings and seriously injure people.

At the same time as securing the crime scene, emergency services from Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse searched around Mainz-Mombach with helicopters and sniffer dogs for the perpetrators, who are still on the run.

They couldn't steal any money.

The act corresponds to the nationwide trend, according to which the sums stolen are getting lower and lower.

In Hesse, according to the State Criminal Police Office, it had fallen by 50 percent to half the same period last year to around 1.2 million euros as of December.

What is increasing is the amount of damage, which has doubled in 2022 - in contrast to 2.5 million euros in damage in the previous year.

At the beginning of December, perpetrators demolished a Santander bank branch in Main-Taunus-Zentrum, causing considerable damage.

However, a complete motorway did not have to be closed after this act.