Thieves carry out movie-like heist in Los Angeles, making off with $30 million

It was a burglary right out of a movie. The few details that the Los Angeles Police Department have provided so far seem to have been taken from a Hollywood script. The hit took place on the night of Easter Sunday at a money storage facility in an industrial area of Sylmar, a suburban neighborhood north of Los Angeles. The burglars entered through the roof and somehow avoided the company’s sophisticated alarm system. They took $30 million from the vault, making it one of the largest heists in the city’s history.

The case has already become a headache for the authorities. The robbery was so well executed that the people in charge of the facility did not realize that the money was gone until Monday morning. The company, Canadian GardaWorld, has not made any public statements.

Police detectives and FBI agents have been investigating since Monday, and sources familiar with the investigation told the L.A. Times that they believe the perpetrators had previous experience with this type of robbery, as it appears to have involved a very elaborate plan that required knowledge about how to enter heavily guarded facilities while going unnoticed.

The burglary has received extensive local news coverage, with an ABC-7 TV news helicopter flying over the storage facility and revealing a cut in one of the walls of the building, covered with plywood.

The $30 million is only an approximate figure provided by the authorities. The FBI reported on Wednesday that its agents are analyzing the company’s information to find out the exact amount that was stolen. It has caught the attention of investigators that the thieves knew that there was such a large amount of cash in that building. GardaWorld has 26 other similar facilities in California in which they store cash.

The burglary is one of the largest cash heists in Los Angeles history. In 2022, the driver of a Brink’s big rig transporting jewelry fell asleep. It took 27 minutes for a group of thieves to take advantage of the situation and extract the valuable cargo, which was valued at almost $100 million. No one has been arrested.

As for cash thefts, in September 1997 five thieves broke into a warehouse and made off with $18 million in $20 bills. They filled a U-Haul truck until the money was up to their waists. One of the gang members was arrested and led investigators to the others, but it took almost three years to capture them.

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