In one of the largest cash heists in Los Angeles history, thieves stole up to $30 million in a robbery at a San Fernando Valley money storage facility on Easter Sunday, a Los Angeles Police official revealed on Wednesday.
The robbery occurred Sunday night at an unnamed facility in Sylmar where cash from businesses around the area is handled and stored, according to Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Eileen Morales.
Morales said the thieves were able to penetrate the building as well as the safe in which the money was stored. Law enforcement sources said the robbery was among the largest in the city's history when cash was involved, and the total burglaries surpassed any armored car theft in the city as well.
Mystery surrounds the break-in.
Sources familiar with the investigation said that the burglary crew broke through the roof of the facility to reach the basement. But it is unclear how they evaded the alarm system.
Additionally, when viewed from the outside, the safe showed no signs of a break-in. The company's operators, whom police have not identified, did not discover the massive theft until they opened the vault on Monday.
Authorities were alerted, and investigators from the LAPD's Mission Division station responded to the crime scene to collect evidence.
What makes matters more complicated is that very few individuals were aware of the huge amounts of cash that were kept inside that safe, according to law enforcement sources.
The break-in was described as complex and it was suggested that there was a crew of experienced thieves who knew how to get into a secure facility without being noticed.
The previous largest cash heist in Los Angeles occurred on September 12, 1997, when $18.9 million was stolen from the former site of the Dunbar armored facility on Matthew Street. Those behind the theft were eventually arrested.
Sunday's incident also comes nearly two years after millions of dollars' worth of jewelry was stolen from a large Brink's platform at a Grapevine truck stop.
Up to $100 million worth of jewelry and valuables were taken from the truck.
In this case, the thieves stole the merchandise at 3 a.m. on July 11, 2022, stuffing more than 20 large bags with jewelry, gemstones and other items that a Brink's tractor trailer was transporting from the International Gem and Jewelry Show in San Francisco. Mateo to the Los Angeles area.
The theft occurred during a 27-minute window, during which one driver slept in the dock while another ate a meal at the Flying J, a sprawling truck stop off the Grapevine Interstate 5 in Lepic, California.
That crime remains unsolved.
