Bank workers in India were shocked to discover that a load of rats had managed to break into a broken ATM machine in their bank and chew their way through more than £13,000 worth of bank notes.
That's one hell of an expensive lunch, by anyone's standards.
The pesky rodents managed to chomp through roughly 1.2 million rupees (£13,300 / $17,700) that were stored inside the cash machine in the city of Tinsukia, which is in North Eastern India's Assam state.
The branch of the State Bank of India had already noticed that the machine wasn't working, however, they couldn't possibly have known the cause or extent of the problem.
That meant that the workmen who came to fix the faulty cashpoint found the shredded money and a dead rat upon opening it up. You'd have to imagine that even the most skilled repair man would struggle to fix that issue.
The day before the machine malfunctioned it had been refilled by a private security firm. They had stocked it full of 500 rupee and 2,000 rupee notes - about half of that ended up as the rats' dinner.
Media in the area have reported that a complaint has been made to the local police force, however, exactly what the police are going to do about a load of rats - some of whom are now presumably dead - is unclear.
A Tinsukia Police Superintendent, Mugdhajyoti Mahanta, said: "When the engineer and other officials opened the ATM, they found destroyed notes and also found a dead mouse inside the ATM,"
Seems like a pretty open and shut case to me, officer.
The bank's manager, Chandan Sharma, said: "The ATM was out of order for a few days and when our technicians opened the kiosk we were shocked to find shredded notes and a dead rat.
"We have started an investigation into this rare incident and will take measures to prevent a recurrence."
Started an investigation? The evidence is all there. Probably best to just chalk this one up to experience.
Interestingly, the rat-burglars managed to evade the security cameras that all of the ATM machines have built into them. Crafty buggers, those rodents.
State Bank of India is the largest bank in India, with around 50,000 ATM machines across the whole nation. Whilst the loss of about £13,300 isn't going to break them, it has certainly taught them a valuable lesson about pest control.
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