Easter vault raiders steal millions in gems
JEWEL thieves ‘ plundered millions and millions’ in a daring raid on a vault over the long Easter weekend.
The gang cut through the roof, abseiled down a lift shaft and used heavy cutting equipment to reach their target in the heart of London’s jewellery district.
Crucially, it is thought the thieves struck on the Thursday night after workers had left the City for the long weekend, giving them four days to break into 300 of the 600 safe deposit boxes kept in the vault.
The professional gem thieves had, somehow, disabled the state of the art alarm system, leaving them free to work undisturbed.
The heist at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd was only discovered when staff arrived for work yesterday.
Jewellers, who often keep their gems in the safes during long weekends, fear a vast amount of diamonds, watches and cash has been taken. Among the most valuable items feared to have been stolen is a halfcut aqua diamond worth £500,000.
A source told the Mail: ‘If the thieves have got into 300 boxes then they will have certainly plundered millions and millions.’
Angry customers began gathering outside the deposit store yesterday.
One said: ‘I’m incredibly concerned. I’ve got more than 40 years of stock in there and they won’t tell me anything.’
Others said the raid ‘seems fishy’ and suggested it could be an ‘inside job’. A
‘Obviously a well-planned job’
jeweller said: ‘How did the alarm system not go off? They must have had inside information. I heard that they got in through the lift shaft.’
Last night another jeweller who rents a safe deposit box said an alarm at the building went off on Good Friday at 1pm.
Norman Bean, who stores around £35,000 worth of jewellery in his safe, said: ‘On Friday one of the security guards turned up and he looked in through the door and couldn’t hear anything so thought it was okay and left. It’s an absolute disgrace. They could have been in there then.
‘I have been told that they got through the lift shaft and they knocked the wall down and took the CCTV cameras off the wall.’
The gang cut through two rows of metal security bars before disabling the alarm on the vault’s main door, a source claimed.
They then used heavy cutting equipment to get through the 18in metal door – an echo of Ray Winstone’s 2000 film Sexy Beast, one of numerous heist movies targeting vaults buried beneath London’s streets.
Police were finally called at 8.10am yesterday when the theft was discovered and Scotland Yard dispatched the Flying Squad to the scene.
Mr Bean, 62, said: ‘I came down here at around 9am and they wouldn’t let me in. We don’t know what’s been taken but the total could be from £1million to £10million, maybe more. It could end up being one of the biggest robberies in London.’
Lewis Malka, a diamond expert, said one of his client’s antique bracelets was stolen. He said: ‘Most of the people who have got safety deposits there are in the trade. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds in goods.’
Another customer, wholesaler Mohammad Shah, said: ‘How they got in is a mystery. There’s only one entrance and the rest is underground. It’s obviously a well-planned job.
‘I had hundreds of thousands in there. It’s insured but some of it is very rare and I won’t be able to replace it.’
It is not the first time safe deposit boxes have been targeted in the area, which is at the centre of the jewellery trade. In 1975 armed robbers burst into Hatton Garden Safe Deposit and fled with an estimated £1.5million in gems, cash and other valuables.
And in 2003 owners lost a fortune when a criminal emptied a number of boxes after posing as a customer.