Thieves dig 15m tunnel in ATM heist

British thieves used a time-honoured trick to break into a supermarket and steal from an ATM: they snuck in via an underground tunnel they spent months digging.

The crafty crooks penetrated the Tesco store on the night of Friday, March 14, and plundered more than $150,000 from a cash machine, reports the Manchester Evening News.

Police believe the robbers must have taken several months to tunnel into the supermarket in Eccles, a town about 4km from central Manchester.

The "complex" underground system started on a "wasteland" next to the supermarket and avoided petrol pipes underneath a service station that sat on the site.

"These people had obviously spent a long time plotting this crime and I doubt they would have been able to keep their plans secret for all that time, without telling others about their elaborate scheme," said DS Mark Toker.

"The offenders must have spent long periods of time in the area over the last few months, which people may have noticed."

Police asked for any witnesses who may have seen people "covered in soil" to come forward.

The theft is believed to connected to two earlier crimes pulled off by a "mole gang".

In 2007, builders discovered an incomplete 12-metre tunnel underneath a Blockbuster video store in the Manchester suburb of Fellowfield.

Authorities filled the tunnel with concrete so it couldn't be reused.

In 2012, there was a successful raid on the same Blockbuster's ATM via a 30-metre tunnel which took an estimated six months to dig.

The culprits in both cases were never caught.