Hatton Gardens

[wylk]

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...

The bad guys had grabbed over $90,000 of the bank's cash when they noticed the door was opening and jumped back into their tunnel and got away. The manager and police, upon entering the vault, noticed a large round hole in the floor and equipment lying about. They were unable to go after the burglars in time to catch them and later discovered the other end of the tunnel. Amazingly, they were planning a second heist at another bank the same weekend. The same crew successfully hit a different bank some time before (about a year IIRC), in 1986.

The story is told in a book "Where The Money Is" in a chapter "The Hole In The Ground Gang". An article is at http://articles.latimes.com/1987-08-...1_bank-robbery.

[mhmh]

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.

First, you should really listen to your lawyer, this is probably not the right time for public comments...

Second, I hope you told him the difference between RLDs that slow down the people from the outside and AEDs that send electric shocks to their heart - the latter should only be applied when they suffer from cardiac arrythmia AFTER they entered and saw your work...

Cheers
mh
;)

[Redoubt]

Your readers might misinterpret the term 'minutes of attack' without realising that in testing terms it is 'net working time' and does not include setting up time, changing tool time, clearing broken tool time, thinking time, plus fatigue recovery time, with the clock only starting when the blow is struck and impacted or on-switch pressed and released.

Other major time factors which I've come across are : time in transporting 6 oxygen cylinders into the premises, re-assembling packed lances which have been shortened for concealment, setting up screens to blank out any flare from oxy-thermal tools, and taking fume diversion measures to ensure the smoke alarm doesn't activate even if the intruder alarm has been nobbled. Also, moving 2 ton safes within premises on scaffolding poles to a position where not overlooked by adjacent buildings.

My apologies for not making myself clear. Yes the 'minutes of attack' is the 'net working time'. In the large amount of testing we have undertaken the 'actual time' to open or put the necessary hole through the side of the test specimen is about twice the 'net working time'.
Fatigue etc is taken into account when calculating the 'net working time'.
Each tool is allocated a 'Basic Value' which is expressed in resistance units. As defined in the EN standards 'the basic value represents problems in obtaining, transporting, using and operating the relevant tool at the site in question and the necessary knowledge and experience for its efficient use'

[Safeone]

My apologies for not making myself clear. Yes the 'minutes of attack' is the 'net working time'. In the large amount of testing we have undertaken the 'actual time' to open or put the necessary hole through the side of the test specimen is about twice the 'net working time'.
Fatigue etc is taken into account when calculating the 'net working time'.
Each tool is allocated a 'Basic Value' which is expressed in resistance units. As defined in the EN standards 'the basic value represents problems in obtaining, transporting, using and operating the relevant tool at the site in question and the necessary knowledge and experience for its efficient use'

Yeah......what he said

[wylk]

Now that the gang has been arrested it's interesting to look back at an expert's early predictions. Noel "Razor" Smith is a former bank robber who offered his thoughts (this per http://anonhq.com/hatton-garden-heis...gest-burglary/ though he was also quoted in other news sources):

Former bank robber Noel Razor Smith, 54, has analysed the CCTV footages and believes the gang was made up of foreign nationals most likely eastern Europeans and Israelis, who had never met but were together for this one job.

“They will have clean records in the UK and be paid a salary during the planning so they don’t commit any other crimes. They will have been put up in luxury while they planned this, all with false identities, telling each other nothing about who they are or where they are from. They have no attachments to each other or the job. On this evidence, the job was pretty watertight. It could have taken up to two years to plan something like this. In my opinion they’ll disappear never to be seen again,” he feels.

As it turned out, he was wrong in nearly every aspect. So far we don't know how long the job was in planning.

[Arcade Al]

I seem to remember reading that some vaults were fitted with microphones, allowing a manager or security gaurd responding to an alarm to simply listen in from the outside without having to open the vault door.

What they were then expected to do in the face of a time-locked door is unclear. Possibly inform the police that a raid was definitely in progress, so that they could go and raid the leather goods shop 3 doors down and nick them at the entrance to the tunnel when they emerged...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Street_robbery

Worth catching the highly entertaining film based on the Baker Street heist ("The Bank Job"), as I had re-watched it only a short while before Hatton Garden and to me the parallels were immediately obvious...

[safeman]

Sounds like the same place doesn't it?

This is from a scrapbook of newspaper clippings but without naming the paper.
Adjacent clippings are from around 1949.

[mhmh]

I'm sure it was state of the art at that time.

[Chubby]

It was, and frankly is, a very good strongroom.

Any strongroom made relies on a level of supervision- guards, cameras and alarms or any combination thereof. If the surveillance isn't there and the bad guys can bring in sophisticated equipment, make as much noise as they want and have unlimited time they will access any vault.

[wylk]

Back on April 9 an image was posted of angled plates Chubb would drop into concrete as deflectors. Here is an image that sort of shows them, after the concrete is poured:



The image is from http://piquantphotos.blogspot.com/20...ank-vault.html