Page 19 - All About History - Issue 08-14

Crime
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10 Security camera
This camera monitored all entrants
into the vault, beaming the footage
back to the guard room. Once
the thieves had entered the room
outside the vault, they covered the
security cameras with black plastic
bags so their activities would not
be monitored.
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04
03
04 Locked steel grate
During business hours the vault door was
left open, leaving a steel grate to prevent
access. Once the magnetic field had been
circumvented, the door unlocked and the
password combination entered, all that
remained was picking the lock on the grate,
with the door being propped open with two
cans of paint found in the store room.
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09 Magnetic sensor
A pair of metal plates on the door
and wall to the right formed a 08
magnetic field. The thieves used
a slab of aluminium affixed with
heavy-duty, double-sided tape,
08 Light sensor
attached it to the two metallic plates
In addition to the motion and heat sensors,
and unscrewed the bolts keeping
alarms detecting light were present in the
them together. This allowed the
vault so any unwarranted access would be
magnetic field to be moved away
immediately noticeable. To get around this,
from the door without breaking it.
after bypassing the vault security system’s
main inbound and outbound wires, they
covered the light sensor with sticky tape.
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05
06
07 Keypad
The only way to disable the magnetic field
protecting the vault door was to enter
the code into the keypad. Ultimately, the
thieves didn’t need to use this, thanks to
successfully moving the magnetic field away
from the door rather than deactivating it.
05 Heat and
motion sensor
The day before the heist,
Notarbartolo entered the vault.
The guard was used to his visits, Combination boxes
so he didn’t pay close attention.
He sprayed the sensor with an 06 Once inside the vault, the thieves
aerosol of hairspray so it wouldn’t used a hand-cranked drill fitted with a thin
be able to detect temperature sheet of metal, which was then jammed
fluctuations. On the day of the into a lock and cranked before pulling open
heist they covered it with a the door and removing its contents. They
Styrofoam box while disabling worked in the dark, only switching on their © Ian Jackson/The Art Agency; Corbis
the vault’s security systems. torches to reposition the drill.
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