The Chilean gang that stole US$5.5 million in the US used the same device that empties cars in Chile
A gang of Chileans hit ATMs on the US West Coast with disguises, blowtorches and signal jammers. The jammer is the same one now used to steal cars in Santiago.
On February 12, 2026, a 27-year-old Chilean woman pleaded guilty before a federal court in California. She was one of the ten members of a gang of fellow Chileans that had operated for months on the US West Coast with a combination no conventional security system was prepared to face: construction worker disguises, industrial blowtorches and signal jammers.
The result: more than US$5.5 million stolen from ATMs. A case of organized crime on an international scale that ended in federal criminal charges.
What the headlines did not highlight is that the core device of that operation is not exclusive to gangs operating in California. It is the same type of equipment that gangs use today to steal cars on the streets of Santiago.
The jammer: same threat, different target
A signal jammer cuts off communication for systems that rely on a wireless signal: a car’s lock, GPS, an alarm, a camera or a radio. In California, it blinded the ATMs before the blowtorches went to work. In Chile the target changes: the car is left unlocked without the owner noticing, and the theft happens silently.
The same weaknesses exploited at the California ATMs exist in vehicles, home alarms, cameras and communication systems that rely on wireless signals all over Chile.
What US justice saw and we still underestimate here
The case ended in federal charges because in the United States deliberate interference with telecommunications signals is treated as what it is: not an accessory to the theft, but a central element of the attack.
Chile updated its legislation in December 2024 with Law 21.720, which bans manufacturing, selling, carrying and using jammers, with prison sentences of up to 10 years when the impact affects critical infrastructure. But the gap between the law and police operations is still wide. Jammers circulate and keep showing up in the fifth paragraph of the police report, instead of taking the place they deserve: the main weapon of the crime.
The question is not whether jammers have reached Chile. They already have. The question is whether our legal, operational and technological response matches the risk.
Sources: Emol · Cooperativa