Top line:
Topline: Thieves broke into a Los Angeles cash storage facility on Easter Sunday, broke into the safe and took $30 million in cash. Detectives are now trying to crack this brazen cash heist, said to be the largest in Los Angeles history.
Details: Police Commander. Elaine Morales told the Los Angeles Times, which broke the news of the crime, that the thieves were able to not only break into the building, but also the safe where the cash was stored. Business owners didn’t realize the large-scale theft until they opened the safe. Media reports identified the facility as the location of GardaWorld, a global cash management and security company located in Sylmar.
What happens next: The LAPD and FBI will only say they are jointly investigating the theft “to identify the person or group responsible.” Authorities asked for information from the public, but did not provide details such as the amount of money stolen or the name of the company.
Robbers broke into a Los Angeles cash storage facility on Easter Sunday, broke into the safe and took $30 million in cash. Detectives are now trying to crack this brazen cash heist, said to be the largest in Los Angeles history.
Police commander. Elaine Morales told the Los Angeles Times, which broke the news of the crime, that the thieves were able to not only break into the building, but also the safe where the cash was stored. Business owners didn’t realize the large-scale theft until they opened the safe.
Media reports identified the facility as the location of GardaWorld, a global cash management and security company located in Sylmar. The Canadian-based company, which also operates armored vehicles, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Los Angeles Police Department Public Information Officer David Cuellar confirmed that officers were called to a store on the same street as Garda World’s Sylmar store at 4:30 a.m. Sunday.
On Thursday morning, several television crews were filming outside the facility in an industrial area in the San Fernando Valley, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles.
Aerial footage from KABC-TV showed a large cutout in the side of the building, which appeared to be covered with plywood.
The Los Angeles Police Department and FBI said only Thursday that they were conducting a joint theft investigation “to identify the person or group responsible.” Authorities asked for information from the public, but did not provide details such as the amount of money stolen or the name of the company.
The Times reported that the break-in was one of the largest cash heists in the city’s history, surpassing the armored car robbery in Los Angeles.
Almost two years ago, $100 million in jewelry and other valuables were stolen from a Brink big rig at a Southern California truck stop. The thief has not been caught.
Jim McGuffey, an armored vehicle expert and security consultant, said the Sylmar theft was “shocking.” He said such facilities would need to install two alarm systems and a seismic motion detector directly above the safe, as well as additional motion sensors throughout the building.
“With money like that, you can’t just come in and walk out with it,” he told The Associated Press. “The facility must be protected from top to bottom and to the sides.”
Mr McGuffie said GardaWorld had a good reputation in the industry, but that all cash management companies “isolate these kinds of strange incidents, and it happens to the best companies”.
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