In one of the largest cash heists in Los Angeles history, thieves made off with as much as $30 million in an Easter Sunday burglary at a San Fernando Valley money storage facility, the Los Angeles Times reports. The burglary occurred Sunday night at a facility where cash from businesses across the region is handled and stored, said police Commander Elaine Morales. The burglars were able to breach the building as well as the safe where the money was stored. Law enforcement sources said the break-in was among the largest burglaries in city history when it comes to cash, and the total surpassed any armored-car heist as well.
A burglary crew broke through the roof of the facility to gain access to the vault. It is unclear how they avoided the alarm system. Viewing the safe from the outside showed no signs of a break-in. The operators of the business did not identify, did not discover the massive theft until they opened the vault on Monday. Adding to the intrigue, very few individuals would have known of the huge sums of cash that were being kept within that safe. The break-in was described as elaborate and suggested an experienced crew of burglars who knew how to gain entry to a secure facility unnoticed. The largest prior cash heist in Los Angeles was on Sept. 12, 1997, with the theft of $18.9 million from the former site of a Dunbar Armored facility. The thieves were caught. Sunday’s incident comes nearly two years after a multimillion-dollar theft of jewelry from a Brink's big rig at a truck stop.