Hatton Gardens

[Chubby]

This is Chubby's lawyer. He is currently unavailable for comment as he is helping the police with their enquiries.

He is totally innocent, again.

[Huw Eastwood]

Safeman I know there's a massive difference between barrier material concrete and what you and I would mix up to support a fence post, but it was the fancy names they all came up with in order to trademark them that I was highlighting there.

Safeone mentioned having a chat with Mike Palmer and I recall one with him when I was over at Guardians in Bristol some years ago. Talking about barrier materials, Fichet's 'Volcanite', 'Gradium', Tann's 'Adamantium' etc was found amusing by all and I think he hit the nail on the head by saying words to the effect of "call it anything you want but don't call it concrete!". Tann's later Tanncretes obviously was a break from this with the clue in half the name. Whether it's termed as security concrete, barrier concrete, high tensile anti-penetration concrete or whatever, it's still only a highly formulated concrete mix with chemical and physical additives.

Doug I would imagine that to be the case for making good although I bet each manufacturer has their guidelines to follow.
i was familiar with the requirements for a specific category of Bankers/Treasury grade safes and strongroom doors where the procedure was strictly set for both drilled holes and larger cut or cored apertures. But it was always safes or the strongroom door itself and not the wall as here, as I always battled to open them with fired relockers or boltwork problems through small drilled holes only.

re-instating the reinforcement, rebar, tangbar or whatever's in that wall would be the tricky bit I would think as once cut its not easy to continue the pattern that was in there. Also it could be tempting for anyone repairing it to get over ambitious with the steel for strength, which then has an adverse effect in over-steeling the concrete itself.

safeones point about the gaping hole through the wall while the business had to continue was a point that that also got me thinking. We all know what insurers are like, smiles and handshakes when taking your premiums but not so happy at pay-out time. Must have been a nightmare all round for everyone I would think. I bet a lot has happened behind the scenes of this one and wouldn't be surprised if changes are implemented because of it.

[Huw Eastwood]

This is Chubby's lawyer. He is currently unavailable for comment as he is helping the police with their enquiries.

He is totally innocent, again.

Nice one! You did have me worried at first though..

[safeman]

Bulky Beer-drinking Berliner Borers need more room.



You'll find the story under Volksbank Robbery Berlin 2013.

No details regarding the actual strong-room, only the tunnel and this, which appears to be the
point of first entry before tunneling.

£8.3 m. loss from deposit lockers mentioned.

Apologies if this is old news.

[wylk]

Not very old news, and a good comparison to Hatton Garden. That's a much larger opening but they were not pressed for time and this was a garage wall, not a vault wall. Other pictures:


Something that is generally missing in reports is how the individual boxes are attacked. TV portrayals often show brute force such as drills and sledge hammers. At Antwerp, the bad guys built a special puller. At Depositer's Trust (1980) the bad buys discovered it was easy to break off the hinges.

Here are my notes on the Volksbank heist:

2013
(January 13) – Burglars dug a 100-150-foot tunnel from an underground garage
into the Berliner Volksbank bank’s safe deposit vault in the Steglitz district
of Berlin. So, were there no alarms? http://news.yahoo.com/germany-robbers-dig-100-foot-195602219.html,
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100390709?__source=yahoonews&par=yahoonews,
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/berlin-bank-robbery-tunnel-photos-released-174842669--abc-news-topstories.html,
http://www.smh.com.au/world/weimar-revisited-as-thieves-tunnel-into-berlins-subterranean-history-20130201-2dq3o.html.
Police eventually released a sketch of a possible suspect and the image of a
fake Dutch ID card used to rent the space in the garage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/german-bank-tunnel-thief-_n_2525961.html)
but later determined the ID card was not relevant (http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2014/01/23/ID-dropped-by-bank-vault-burglars-pictured-innocent-teacher/UPI-55501390504620);
another article suggested inside information was used because 50% of boxes were
rented yet the burglars opened boxes with a 95% rent rate (http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130119-47431.html).
Last I checked no arrests had been made.

[Huw Eastwood]

I can't imagine that any gang would plan an all-out attack on a safe deposit vault in a situation where they knew that they would be pushed for time.

That's some garage wall- the concrete looks 10 or 12 inches thick at least, and as a large commercial building it might not have the barriers expected in a vault wall like tordbar or tangbar, but I bet it still had rebar. Hats off to the Germans again, they don't mess about! All that before they even started on the 'proper job'.

Its common for joe public and anyone who doesn't know to see the breaking open of the individual boxes as a feat in itself, they almost seem to imagine them as kind of 'mini high security safes', but they are only intended to offer a level of dual control security when the vault is open. If a customer is in the vault accessing their own deposit box, there is no easy way for them to start opening and accessing others, that's all they're really intended to provide.

There are countless ways they use to force open the different types of boxes in an attack, from pullers to drill and punch, but doing so would be the easy part of the job, and insignificant compared to successful opening of the door itself or accessing the vault through a wall as is most common.

There was a pretty good documentary I saw a few years back which highlighted a few big attacks on bank and deposit vaults in Germany. One which really stood out was an attack on a vault where they also attacked and opened several bankers grade safes inside- now that's a serious feat of effort, determination and confidence for you. Mind you, not surprisingly they didn't do it on the banks hour break for lunch, like most other attacks it was another well planned and executed over a long bank holiday weekend.

[mhmh]

About the heist at Berliner Volksbank: A German TV magazine "Aktenzeichen XY" which aims at finding witnesses of crimes has shown a rather long video of a reproduction: http://youtu.be/WizLpLD1vZQ
"Were there no alarms"? - yes there were alarms, but not enough. They drilled through the wall of a rented garage, built a tunnel, then drilled through the vault wall. There was no electronic protection of the vault wall, just some motion detectors inside the vault which didn't cover the attacked area. When one of them was tripped once, the security company did not go into the vault to check inside.

Cheers
mh

[wylk]

...When one of [the alarms] was tripped once, the security company did not go into the vault to check inside.

And here we have security back-firing. Time locks are supposed to improve security by making it impossible to coerce the manager into opening the door outside of normal hours. But if the alarm goes off, you can't open the door to check. Video cameras in the vault seem to be frowned upon as an invasion of customers' privacy. So if an alarm trips you don't seem to have many options if it's a tunnel job.

In one vault burglary in Los Angeles, alarms and sounds suggested a problem. The manager and police arrived, the manager explained that the insurance policy required the door be equipped with time locks but did not require that he use them. He then opened the door, foiling the burglars just as they were about to start on the boxes. They were not caught (and they escaped before they could be seen).

[Huw Eastwood]

In one vault burglary in Los Angeles, alarms and sounds suggested a problem. The manager and police arrived, the manager explained that the insurance policy required the door be equipped with time locks but did not require that he use them. He then opened the door, foiling the burglars just as they were about to start on the boxes. They were not caught (and they escaped before they could be seen).

This is getting silly now, so the manager actually opened the vault with the police present to investigate, stops them dead in their tracks about to start opening the boxes, and yet in the confines of a deposit vault they are completely un-noticed, the destruction they've left on entry and their point of entry also un-noticed, and they all have enough time to escape back out without trace...and not get caught...

[Chubby]

When I have tunneled into a vault I usually get the apprentice to cut into the back panel of the door and trigger the AEDs. This gives us extra time to get out. It is also useful experience for him.