A pair's plan to get rich by stealing a 'large and heavy” Coca-Cola vending machine turned into a fizzer as they spent hours getting into the machine – for $20 in coins.

The bizarre crime took place on Monday, September 19, last year when Shane Tamati Sorenson, 48, and Bernadette Woods, 29, were at the U-Wash facility on Rotorua's Te Ngae Rd.

The pair had arrived in their Mazda station wagon and outside the U-Wash was the vending machine, described in the police summary of facts as 'large and heavy”.

'Backing up, the defendants tipped the Coca-Cola vending machine over onto its side and attempted to man-handle it into the back of the station wagon,” the summary said.

'Unsuccessful in that endeavour the defendant Woods moved the vehicle and the defendant Sorenson tied a rope around the machine and fastened it to an anchor point in the vehicle.

'Once completed the defendants drove off towing the Coca-Cola machine behind them. . . they eventually made their way to a vacant property.

But, like a drink can with the pull tab snapped off, the red and white vending machine vault wasn't giving up it's contents so easily.

'They spent several hours opening the vending machine to extract money and drinks,” the summary notes.

Woods later told police they stole the machine 'because they thought it was full of money”.

'She added that they only got about $20 in coins – 10 and 20 cent pieces.”

The summary noted the machine and its contents are valued at about $1100 and that sum has also been sought from the pair in reparation.

Both Sorenson and Woods have appeared before the court before, and will be sentenced on one charge of theft each at Rotorua District Court in February.

Theft over $1000 has a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment.

-Benn Bathgate/Stuff.