4 plead guilty in London's Hatton Garden jewel heist
Photos: The Hatton Garden heist
The heist in April targeted the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd., which has been "the epicenter of London's jewelry trade since medieval times." Police believe it took days. This hole through a vault wall is about 10 inches high and 18 inches wide. The wall is composed of 20 inches of reinforced concrete, so the drilling alone likely took a while.
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Photos: The Hatton Garden heist
There was no sign of forced entry on the outside of the building, which houses numerous businesses. It appears the thieves disabled an elevator on the second floor of the building, then climbed down the elevator shaft into the basement where the vault is located, said Detective Chief Inspector Paul Johnson of the London Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad. The squad, which Brits often refer to as "The Sweeney," is the Met's branch dedicated to heists and armed robberies. "Sweeney Todd" is Cockney rhyming slang for Flying Squad. Get it? No? It's OK. Few non-Cockneys do.
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Photos: The Hatton Garden heist
Here's the hallway leading to the vault. By now you're thinking, "Doesn't this joint have alarms?" Yes, it does. In fact, an alarm was activated, recorded and transferred to a computer-aided dispatch system used by police. However, the alarm had a "grade" that meant no police response was required, according to investigators. Even though police say it's too early to determine whether applying the correct grade would have stopped the heist, you have to think someone has some explaining to do here.
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Photos: The Hatton Garden heist
The thieves cut through the bars of a security door. Police say this must have taken some time. How long is unclear, though, as the Met said in a statement that the thieves accessed the vault between 9:20 p.m. on April 2 and 8:05 a.m. on April 3 and between 10:17 p.m. on April 4 and 6:30 a.m. on April 5. For the math-challenged, that first window is almost 11 hour