A group of four or five people crashed a gray Jeep into a BP gas station on the 3900 block of West Ogden Avenue near Cermak Road early Thursday, tore into the minimart, and made off with the ATM inside. Police say the burglary happened around 4:38 a.m. in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood, and no injuries were reported. The suspects fled in a white sport-utility vehicle, leaving the battered Jeep behind.
The break-in was first reported by CBS Chicago, which said Chicago police are investigating and that no arrests had been reported as of Thursday. The station sits in territory covered by Harrison Area (Area 4) detectives, who handle major commercial burglary investigations across the 10th and 11th police districts, according to Austin Weekly News.
Same Playbook, Different Chicago Gas Station
The North Lawndale hit follows an almost identical pattern to a string of ATM thefts that have rattled Chicago gas stations and convenience stores throughout the summer. On August 18, a group crashed a red SUV into a Mobil station in Woodlawn, stole the ATM, and escaped in a gray-and-white getaway car, Hoodline previously reported crash-and-grab crews hitting again. Days earlier, on August 3, burglars crashed a blue Jeep into a Roseland gas station minimart, tore out the ATM, and escaped in a separate white Jeep.
The tactic goes back further still. On July 27, burglars rammed a Shell station straddling Lincoln Park and Lakeview and stole a cash ATM holding roughly $75,000, notably leaving behind a cryptocurrency ATM untouched. On June 25, a crew drove a dark Jeep into the entrance of a 7-Eleven in Portage Park, grabbed the ATM, and fled in a different vehicle, according to ABC7 Chicago footage. Security researchers say the method is deliberate: a stolen heavy vehicle breaches storefront glass in under two minutes, giving a small crew just enough time to yank a bolted-down machine free before switching to an unconnected getaway car, per Deep Sentinel.
Commercial Burglaries Surge Even as Residential Crime Falls
The North Lawndale raid lands amid a broader shift in Chicago property crime. Chicago Police Department CompStat figures show citywide burglaries dropped 20 percent in 2025, falling to 6,130 incidents from 7,654 the year before, Hoodline has reported. Yet a 2026 Council on Criminal Justice report found nonresidential and commercial burglaries in Chicago surged 132 percent between 2019 and mid-2026, even as residential burglaries fell 52 percent over the same stretch — a divergence that leaves gas stations and other storefronts increasingly exposed while overall crime statistics trend downward.
The pattern extends statewide, too. The ATM Industry Association has tallied 189 ATM theft incidents across Illinois in recent years, fueling a bipartisan push in Congress to make ATM theft a federal crime akin to bank robbery, according to WGN-TV. Under Illinois law, entering a building without authority to commit a theft while causing property damage is a Class 2 felony, carrying 3 to 7 years in prison and fines up to $25,000 if suspects in cases like this one are ultimately caught and convicted.
An Open Question for Investigators
Whether these repeated ATM raids across Chicago's North, West, and South Sides are the work of one coordinated ring or several separate crews copying the same low-risk approach remains unresolved. Similar incidents have hit a South Side gas station on Jeffery Boulevard in a failed pre-dawn attempt and a Chatham station where four suspects rammed a Jeep and fled in a red Acura, both detailed in earlier Hoodline coverage. For now, Chicago police continue investigating the North Lawndale burglary, with no arrests reported and the BP station left to count the cost of a shattered storefront and a missing ATM.
