SIX people are due to appear in court today (Thursday, October 17) after being charged as part of an investigation into a string of raids on cash machines around the country.

West Midlands Police's Major Crime Unit have been investigating an organised gang which allegedly used stolen Audis and a flat-bed truck as they broke into cash machines between March and September this year.

The force says the gang used ‘jaws of life’ – cutting equipment used by firefighters to free people from trapped vehicles – as they targeted the cash machines.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds has been stolen in a series of nine attacks on cash machines, with the gang striking in Cumbria, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Leighton Buzzard and Towcester near Milton Keynes.

Officers raided addresses around the Midlands and in Carlisle on Tuesday (October 15), and five men and a woman were charged.

Simon Pagett, aged 43, of Bloxwich, Noel Reilly, aged 45, of Bromsgrove, and Craig Howell, aged 43, of Bilston are all charged with conspiracy to commit burglary with intent to steal, conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary with intent, conspiracy to handle stolen goods and money laundering.

Oliver Matthews, aged 38, of Featherstone, Staffordshire, Martyn Smith, aged 43, of Carlisle, and Helen Pagett, aged 49, of Bloxwich, are all charged with conspiracy to commit burglary, conspiracy to handle stolen goods, and money laundering.

All are due to appear before Wolverhampton magistrates today.