Two would-be thieves unsuccessfully attempted to rob GFA Federal Credit Union over the weekend, according to Peterborough police.
On Saturday night, at some point during the overnight hours, while the business was closed, two individuals cut fiber-optic wires on the roof of the Monadnock Plaza, forced their way into the GFA through a back door and attempted to gain access to its vault, according to Peterborough Police Chief Scott Guinard in an interview on Tuesday.
“They were not ultimately successful,” said Guinard. “They did do some damage to the property, but they did not get any money.”
GFA employees notified police of the attempted break in the following day around 12:40 p.m. The GFA is usually closed on Sundays.
Police do not, at this time, have a description of the two individuals involved, but did collect what Guinard termed “a great deal of physical evidence” both at the GFA and at the sand pit located next door to the plaza. Guinard declined to describe the evidence collected, due to the active nature of the investigation, but did confirm that at least some of the evidence had been sent to a forensic lab for analysis. Police are also gathering area surveillance footage and conducting interviews.
This is not the first time the Peterborough GFA branch, or the credit union’s other New Hampshire branch in Rindge have been targeted.
In 2015, the Rindge GFA was robbed in September of 2015 when a man in camouflage gear walked in and demanded cash, though he did not display a weapon. The perpetrator in that case, Jed. D. Wheeler of New Ipswich, was arrested later that year after he robbed a Regions Bank in Greenville, South Carolina.
A few years earlier, in 2013, the Peterborough branch was also targeted by a hold-up, when two men with a gun walked in, demanding cash. Those men got away with more than $10,000 in cash and escaped in a car with Massachusetts plates. About a month later, Christopher Clarke of Leominster, Massachusetts and Michael Mack of Fitchburg, Massachusetts were arrested and charged with the robbery.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter@AshleySaariMLT.