Hatton Gardens

Chubby · 2015-04-08T09:19:04+00:00

Any thoughts? Anybody want to own up now? You might get a reduced sentence. I was in Chengdu and have witnesses to support my alibi.

wylk

MaxVaultage wrote
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/1987-08-24/local/me-2037_1_bank-robbery.

[unknown]

mhmh

Chubby wrote
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
😉

[unknown]

Redoubt

safeman wrote
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’

[unknown]

Safeone

Redoubt wrote
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 🙁hi):

[unknown]

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-heist-how-the-cops-helped-robbers-carry-out-britains-biggest-burglary/ though he was also quoted in other news sources):[INDENT]
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.[/INDENT]
[INDENT]
“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.[/INDENT]

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/2010/03/photo-essay-midland-bank-vault.html

wylk

A few updates –

July: Gangster John “Goldfinger” Palmer is found dead, police do not list this as suspicious. SIX DAYS LATER the coroner finds a bullet hole in his chest, this changes a few things. Police wonder if this is connected in some way to Hatton Garden, which to me seems like they are trying to deflect attention away from their initial error. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hatton-garden-heist-goldfinger-gangland-5999484

August: four more are arrested: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hatton-garden-heist-four-appear-in-court-charged-in-connection-with-multi-million-pound-raid-a2922196.html

September: The safe deposit company fails and liquidates: http://www.diamonds.net/News/NewsItem.aspx?ArticleID=53285&ArticleTitle=Burgled+Hatton+Garden+Jewelry+Vault+Firm+Closing

September: Four of the men originally charged plead guilty: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-34153995

I do hope at least one will insist on a trial, I’d love to see what evidence comes to light as a result.

Chubby

Funnily enough I was going to post here to ask if there were any updates.

So the company owning the safe deposit has gone bang. That is a complete surprise, of course, and could not have been foreseen by anybody.

The gangland murder being undetected for 6 days is likewise the sort of mistake anybody could make. I do hope this will not have an adverse effect on anybody’s career.

All seems extremely straightforward to me. Like the alarm being switched off. Just an oversight. Let he who is without sin bung the first brick and all that.

Safeone

The trial is now ongoing. Found it ‘interesting’ that one of the accused now wants to make amends and gave up his stash of the loot. These men are getting on in years already so they may well die inside should they get a guilty conviction.

Link below tell the story of the guy who wants to give up his loot………

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hatton-garden-raider-wants-to-make-amends-a3097396.html

wylk

A few updates:

The trial is now over. Four confessed, one was released with charges dropped. Four were tried, three of them were convicted and one was found not guilty. Sentencing remains. One was never identified and remains at large.

The famous hole in the wall was recently re-drilled. The new business will serve wine through the hole, capitalizing on its fame. I wonder if they will allow patrons to crawl through it. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3406785/New-owner-Hatton-Gardon-vault-famous-hole-DRILLED.html

A movie company has started production on the story, this was easy to predict.

A crime writer will publish a story that a mobster was killed to keep him quiet about the raid. http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/Bath-gangster-John-Goldfinger-Palmer-murdered/story-28567816-detail/story.html

A jeweler is marketing “hole-shaped” necklaces:

wylk

A nice collection of images, no doubt taken after authorities picked through the mess and took away evidence (the famous hole is filled in but little if any cleanup has been done):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3401417/Inside-ransacked-Hatton-Garden-vaults-Pictures-devastation-left-gang.html

wylk

I really get a chuckle out of this one image in particular –

Notice the dimples in the new concrete. It looks like somebody opened the door too far while the concrete was still a little wet. As we’ve discussed in some other thread, doorstops are a nice idea.

Arcade Al

Interesting stuff, and I still love the retro feel of this place!

Of note is how many different locking systems are fitted to the boxes - many have the traditional duel lock system, but others seem to have one blanked off.
Others have been retrofitted with various models of combination lock.

Opening seems to have been achieved by hammering in a lever such as the crowbar pictures, and then prying to bend or break the lock body, or by punching the lock off the back of the door.

wylk

It now appears that the vault will be dismantled and taken to the London Museum though it might be six years before it goes on display because the museum is also planning a move to a new location. This does not sound like a simple task!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3870602/The-real-guv-nor-time-Hatton-Garden-film-star-Larry-Lamb-visits-infamous-vault-painstakingly-moved-museum-SIX-years.html

Safeone

Well there is a book out, recently released by one of the gang, Brian Readers book One Last Job is available. Not read it myself and dont know anyone who has.

You have to be very sceptical about the many ‘true crime’ books that are around at the minute. After all how ‘true’ can they be when written by self confessed life long criminals?

Chubby

Here is a link to a story about a gold vault robbery:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jyp0#play

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