DANVILLE, Va. — According to www.wsls.com, a vending machine at the Laser Wash carwash was robbed of quarters using an electronic device.

When Shane Brackin, owner of the carwash, came to check his vending machine on Feb. 4th, he found far fewer coins inside than there should have been, so he looked at his surveillance footage, the article continued.

The footage shows a man using an electronic device that forced the machine to spit out quarters, the article noted.

“We’ve heard about something similar to this in the past. It’s what they call ‘jackpotting.’ So we knew what to look for but we didn’t know what kind of device to look for,” Brackin said.

After watching the footage, Brackin called the Danville Police, the article added.

“We had real good footage of his vehicle, his license plate. We had good footage of his face. The Danville Police Department jumped [on the case] pretty quick,” Brackin said.

Brackin said that footage shows the same man hitting up the vending machine again on Feb. 6th, the article added.

Danville Police Department Lt. Richard Chivvis said the suspect, Charles Young, stole approximately 4,000 quarters — roughly $1,000 — in a haul weighing nearly 50 pounds, the article continued.

“The officers did an outstanding job. As part of the investigation, when they observed him back in the same area, the officers stopped him, furthered their investigation and were able to recover a lot, if not all, of the stolen quarters,” Chivvis said.

Chivvis said officers also recovered the electronic device, which Young learned to make on the internet, the article noted.

Brackin is upgrading the vending machine software at all of his carwashes to prevent more instances of jackpotting, the article added.

Investigators believe Young hit up over a dozen vending machines in the area, but they also believe the carwash was the only business in Danville to have been robbed, the article noted.

Read the original article here.