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Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:18 pm
by mercurial
pmaxey83 wrote:But the density is not correct. I've worked in old banks, and when they removed portions of the wall or floor it would contain a nest of rebar. You would burn up any bit trying to drill through these walls.

You can see in that saw cut that wall had standard amounts of rebar, real bank walls are formed to not allow a core drilling machine to puncture them like that.


I do not have any first hand experience in this area, so I can only go by my research and reading.

That said, this was a wall built to withstand 1940s technology, so the rebar won't be on par with today's standards.

Also, some vault technicians core drill vault walls as a matter of course, including modern examples, which tends to suggest that top of the line core drilling equipment is up to the task of tackling modern rebar. I have no doubt that the rebar makes the job a lot more difficult, but the fact is it happens routinely

...Mark

[edited to correct spelling]

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 12:47 am
by kerti
Dimond tube drill cuts all material except soft material like tin,resine,plastic,copper etc. So if you don't have a good alarm system or guarders than burglars can cut vault with modern tools. DD350 is the simple middle power tool. There are industrial high power tool that can cut a hole 800mm diameter for instance.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 8:22 am
by ARF-GEF
Here's a feature about how they have gotten in from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32431557

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:00 am
by Deadlock
Yeah, it's just a half hour programme on tonight at 10. I'll watch it of course, but I think it'll be more questions than answers.

As it says in the link, one major puzzle is why they didn't open more of the boxes. A gift to the conspiracy theorists, if that's the right term. Were they looking for something in particular? And after they found it, they had the discipline to stop and concentrate on the getaway? Very impressive, with a vault full of gemstones, cash and who knows what else there for the taking.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:21 am
by kerti
Deadlock wrote: one major puzzle is why they didn't open more of the boxes.


Since you can see on the photo
Image
they opened big boxes not usual deposit boxes. So about 40-50 half filled boxes have significant weight. So 3 men can take about 3x20=60 kilograms.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 1:45 pm
by Deadlock
Thanks kerti, I hadn't spotted that.

I wonder if it was less about weight and more about time constraints. Which would you go for, the big commercial boxes, or the small ones which might just have papers inside?

... Unless they were looking for something they knew would be in one of the big boxes...

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 4:31 pm
by Deadlock
Just seen it. Not bad, it pulled together all the information we already know.

72 out of a possible 999 boxes were opened. The presenter tried his hand at opening some of a similar type of the small ones. Took under a minute using a sledge hammer. Not exactly quiet though.

Drilling the hole in the wall was re-created using a piece of the same thickness concrete and a DD350. 2 hours 19 minutes! That's all! Mind you, you need a thin guy to get through it. Don't think I would. That hole's smaller than it looks in the photos.
Edit: As is normal practice, they had the hosepipe connected to the drill when they did this. They didn't use the water collector though. No mention of whether they had a water supply in the vault, or what difference it would've made drilling it dry.

I don't know if it's possible for those in other countries to watch it on BBC iPlayer, but if you can, it's well worth a look.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 7:39 am
by ARF-GEF
What I don't get is that these vault walls are not just made of concrete, they have specially shaped steel reinforcements. There is the spiral mattress for one and then there's the Tangbar. At least I know of these two, probably many others exist.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 7:57 am
by huxleypig
From what I know about this case, they core drilled through the rebar and the concrete. 3 holes, about 1 foot in diameter. It can be done in < 2 hours.

The really crazy thing is that they abseiled down a lift shaft to the basement where they forced open the security door on the lift from the inside (the basement was meant to never be used, as security). They then cut through a steel door and went through the wall.

They clearly had some sort of inside information on the layout of the building and alarm system. However, they did trip an alarm. I have heard 2 conflicting reports now...the 1st was that the cops got the alarm but for some reason didn't respond...the 2nd is that the cops went but saw no signs of forced entry so left again.

What interests me is the number of safety deposit boxes that they opened. Time was not an issue. In fact, they left and returned 2 days later to get more loot. And yet only 72 of the 1000 boxes were opened...strange. Once inside the vault it didn't take long to open the boxes...from what I could see they looked like Lowe and Fletcher-style dual key things. Easily forced.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 3:58 am
by Deadlock
Spiral mattress. Heh. Sounds like the name of a band. Tangbar. A chocolate bar with a lemon flavoured filling? The thing is, this is a 60 year old vault. If this sort of stuff existed in the world at the time, it probably wasn't available in England.

They abseiled down the lift shaft and levered up a roller shutter type of door. Then they cut the bars on the next which was like an Alcatraz style prison door - for want of a better analogy.

A new, more state of the art, security system had been installed, but was not online. The alarm was triggered which went to a security company. They passed this on to the local police. For reasons which haven't been officially disclosed, the police did not attend.

Think about it this way. How many alarms are false alarms? 9 out of 10? 99 out of a 100? What do you do when you hear a car alarm going off? Do you think, ''Quick! Call the police! That car's being stolen!'' Or do you think, ''Aaargh! Turn that bloody thing off!'' Especially if it's one of those that starts, then stops, starts, then stops, starts, then stops... you know what I mean.

Anyway, I'm sure a carefully worded statement as to why the police didn't attend will be released at some point.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Tue May 19, 2015 7:23 am
by Deadlock

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Tue May 19, 2015 11:39 am
by ARF-GEF
Funny that the title in the link says seven men held and the articel says nine arrested :D

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Tue May 19, 2015 3:02 pm
by Deadlock
Yeah, just a mistake I think. Here's another link:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-32799703

I was disappointed when I saw this today. After all that and they got pinched so quick. Like I said before, I don't condone it, but... well, if I was writing the screenplay they'd all be on a tropical beach, ha ha!

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:30 am
by gibson
reading a book right now about hatton gardens. as an old fart myself, very amusing to hear that the average age of the thiefs responsible was sixty-nine (69) years old! the lead guy had to quit after the first night because of heart palpitations, another guy had to pause to give himself an insulin shot, and the look-out decided to take a nap! name of the book is 'sexy beasts', don't have the author's name on hand. book goes in depth as to why all the boxes weren't opened (not going to spoil the plot. not a lot of technical information in the book, but they described to drill bits as being 'diamond tipped'. check it out.

Re: London Hatton Garden vault break in.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:36 am
by huxleypig
gibson wrote:reading a book right now about hatton gardens. as an old fart myself, very amusing to hear that the average age of the thiefs responsible was sixty-nine (69) years old! the lead guy had to quit after the first night because of heart palpitations, another guy had to pause to give himself an insulin shot, and the look-out decided to take a nap! name of the book is 'sexy beasts', don't have the author's name on hand. book goes in depth as to why all the boxes weren't opened (not going to spoil the plot. not a lot of technical information in the book, but they described to drill bits as being 'diamond tipped'. check it out.


I wanted to read that book, you say it is good? The shadowy 'mastermind' got away, right?