A northern first: thieves haul 200-pound ATM out of Nunavut airport

This how the automatic teller machine at the airport in Arviat looked shortly after it was installed in October 2015. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NWC)

There’s just an empty space now where the ATM stood at the Arviat airport, although the NWC says it will replace the stolen machine. (SUBMITTED PHOTO)

(Updated, April 8, 3:50 p.m.)

An Arviat man has been charged in connection with the theft of an automatic teller machine April 3 from the community’s airport.

Edmund Pameolik faces two counts of break and enter, one count of taking a vehicle without consent, and one count of breach probation, police said April 8.

The ATM disappeared from the airport April 3 — when thieves broke into the airport, vandalized offices and ripped the ATM out of the wall and floor, where it was bolted down.

At roughly 2:30 a.m. the Government of Nunavut’s community and government services office was broken into and a pick up truck was stolen, police said.

“Suspects then broke into the Arviat Airport where they removed and stole a ATM machine which contained no cash,” police said.

The ATM was later found at the Arviat dump.

The ATM bore a stamp saying there’s no cash in the machine during the night.

But maybe those who took the ATM thought it was just a sticker, suggests Bruce Smith, who’s in charge of teller operations for North West Co., which owns that ATM and three others in Arviat.

The thieves were unable to break into the ATM, he said.

But Smith said it isn’t surprising the stolen machine was found: Weighing about 200 pounds, the ATM wouldn’t be easy to take out of the community.

An ATM costs about $6,000 to replace, and the NWC plans to replace this one, installed this past October, because it’s unusable, Smith told Nunatsiaq News in a telephone interview from Winnipeg.

Smith said the theft of the ATM is “a first in the North.”

And even more unusual is that the ATM was taken out of the airport, because “you can’t get it out of the community,” Smith said.

You can find lots of information online on how to break into a ATM, but Smith said “most of that stuff doesn’t work.”

Police are still looking for other individuals involved in the heist, which remains under investigation.

Previous break-ins at the airport hurt business owners who in the past operated vending machines there, community sources told Nunatsiaq News — so much so, there are no more vending machines at the airport.