A 25-year-old Houston man has been accused of stealing more than $8,000 from a bank ATM in Wisconsin.
According to a recently unsealed federal complaint, on Jan. 7, 2021, Nicolas Ulloa and an unknown accomplice allegedly used chains and hooks attached to a stolen pickup truck to rob an ATM at the BMO Harris Bank in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
Bank surveillance video captured the Wisconsin ATM robbery, and police spotted the stolen truck as it fled the scene, the complaint states.
Ulloa was ultimately arrested after a brief chase with police, during which he crashed his vehicle and attempted to flee on foot, the complaint alleges. The stolen money was recovered at the scene.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
His alleged accomplice is still at large, according to the complaint.
Court documents allege that Ulloa may be part of a ring of ATM thieves responsible for more than 800 ATM thefts nationwide, 500 of which occurred in Texas alone and date back to Sept. 2018.
According to the complaint, the FBI has identified a large group of individuals, mostly based out of Houston, committed bank burglaries and thefts across the country.
Texas News
News from around the state of Texas.
The complaint alleges that these burglaries often involved the use of stolen vehicles, usually pickup trucks, configured with hooks and chains used to force open ATMs and steal money from the safe contained inside.
The complaint states that the FBI obtained a search warrant for Ulloa's cell phone, which allegedly contained screen shots of bank locations in Ohio and communications with additional suspected accomplices.
Ulloa admitted to the FBI that he was driving the stolen truck during the Wisconsin ATM burglary and stole the money before fleeing from police, the complaint alleges.
According to the complaint, Ulloa was out on a $60,000 cash bond in Houston for a similar suspected ATM burglary that occurred in Nov. 2019.
Ulloa is currently being held in the Milwaukee County Jail for vehicle theft, reckless endangerment, and fleeing from police. He is also a being held on federal bank robbery charges.
