Safe Cracking & Beer
Wanna break in a TL-30 safe? Better grab some beer and ice!
This is that scenario where we always say, if they want it bad enough and they know what they are doing, they're gonna get it regardless. Of note though, they would need a bigger hole to get long guns out of there. Also, make sure to have a motion sensor near the safe.
Thieves pull off stunning gem heist in Chicago
Article and Video
Chicago – A Chicago jewelry store owner says a heist that resulted in her store being robbed of $500,000 in precious gems was "definitely straight out of Ocean's Eleven."
Thieves broke into Steve Quick Jewelers in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago on Tuesday night by cutting through a common wall in the sushi restaurant next door straight into the back corner of the jeweler's office, right behind the safe –– the only part of the store not covered by an elaborate security system of cameras and motion detectors.
They then used a saw to cut through the safe, reach in and grab the gems.
"They figured it out, they knew exactly how to get it, exactly how to do it." owner Melissa Quick said.
Police told the owners it had to have been someone who had been in the backroom before and knew the security soft spot.
"That person is either the luckiest criminal on the planet that happened to go in that space where the motion detector wouldn't pick him up –– and it's only not there because it's my desk area –– or somehow they had some information," owner Steve Quick said.
The most intriguing item left behind by the burglars who escaped unseen was an ice bucket full of beer.
"They had been using the beer to cool the saw blade. The metal got hot enough so that it could burn whatever's inside the safe, so they were pouring beer on the saw blade to keep it cool," said Steve Quick.
This is my business, I own a security and safe company {only high end stuff, but everything from personal security {body guard service} and trained K9 service to safes and alarms sales and installation}...
I always use a light sensor in safes that will be holding more than $50K of valuables, and with a half million dollar storage, that safe should have had an Intellect sensor system with a separate panel that needs to but disarmed in coordination with the main entry panel, and it should have incorporated an internal motion, a couple vibrations, and at least one weight sensor in front of it {I would need to see the layout to say better}... Thats a $1500 system and it would have saved this insurance company a half million....
A while back I proposed insurance companies to install their own security systems when they were asked to sell large safe policies, a few companies crunched the numbers and felt, and I quote the letter from one of the largest companies I dealt with "an internal audit of current information, has led to the conclusion that the cost of a case by case determination of requirement coupled with the added cost of said securities would be greater than the actual annual claim payout" so in other words to pay someone to determine which safes should be mandated a security system and the cost of the system would be more than the amount they pay for claims... Since then safes have come a long way, but years ago, I could get into 95% of them in an hour or less...
The problem is when you make something more secure there is someone making better ways to break it down... I do it as a hobby, I was given a safe from a company I cant legally mention so do some research, it incorporated a vault type door with hidden hinges and tamper pins that if you tamper with the primary lock it would snap the secondary lugs closed, and they put them in different spots on all their doors so you dont know where exactly they fall, it also had blind closing points and very close tols, so you couldnt just shove some titanium sheet in-between to hold the lugs back.. But after a week of investigating it and looking at it, we figured it out...
The Primary lock was easy, not a cheap on by far, but every time you tamp it, it would smash the secondaries shut, this would be very bad if you were trying to crack it, once they are closed go home or go around back because your not going in the front.... So you have to find them secondaries, this is the problem, easy solution though, we applied current to the door to heat it, the lugs showed cold spots with the thermal imager {we used a flir I7, nothing super fancy, I do have much better ones, but the i7 res was enough to make out the lugs}, then it was just a matter of carefully drilling each lug and installing steel dowels to lock them in place. Now with that done, get by the primary and swinger open.... The company took our info and made some changes, I recommended a glass sheild {just a peice of glass in front of the safe behind the steel so when we drilled it it would shatter and fall and set the secondaries closed, also a heat sensor that did the same once tripped... The problem is them items make the safe unreliable... You slalm the door and the glass shatters you ruining the safe to get it open...
OK anyway, Looks like a good score for someone... 500K, no joke there..
We had a check cashing store that got hit. The alarm company messed up the dispatch and didn't advise that there was interior motion or something. So the police didn't think it was anything but a malfunctioning alarm when they found the store secure. I guess the bad guys had gone through the roof. Anyway, they were inside torching the safe, they cut through the 5 inch door and were using buckets of water to keep the safe cool. Pretty amazing. I saw the safe the owner kept in the back.
Interesting that even in most of these commercial robberies, they go after the door.
I have a jewelry store. I spent money on security cameras, an alarm and a TL rated safe. I spent time planning security procedures for the entire time that the store is occupied. Here are a couple of things I've learned.
1. Insurance companies don't really care if you have great security or just OK security. For instance, the difference in my monthly bill for having a TL15 vs. a TL30 safe meant that a TL30 would pay for itself in a little over 20 years.
Also I need a monitored alarm, that's about it. They don't care if it has a cell backup or what the exact setup is. And video surveilance, they don't care at all about that.
2. Determined, intellegent theives will win every time. Advantage goes to the attacker.
3. I will get robbed, damn near every jeweler does. When I am robbed I hope it happens at night when I'm not here. All my stuff, and my customer's stuff is insured and can be replaced. If they come in while the store is open there is likely to be violence, hopefully I come out on top, but there is no guarantee of that.
Most of these guys hitting high profile targets are professional burglars, and some of the techniques that they use are intended to make others believe that they were amateurs. You are right though, in that a professional burglar is going to get into the safe. They'll also bypass the alarm, just like they did in this story. I assure you that it wasn't luck. They knew exactly what they wanted, where it was stored in the safe, and how to get to it without setting off the alarm.
Your average residential burglar is not going to have the ability, skill, or time to get into a safe that carries a true burglary rating. To say "Well, any safe can be broken into, so I might as well use that $200 safe from Walmart" isn't being very smart. Safes buy time. Better safes buy more time. The more time you have, the more likely it is that the person attacking the safe will give up or get caught. Then again, the average homeowner isn't keeping assets on hand that would require a safe designed to protect a half million dollars.
Always remember that gun safes (with an RSC rating) are tested for a period of 5 minutes against a small hammer and a big screwdriver. Once you get up to plate steel safes, neither of those tools is going to do a whole lot of good. There are some gun safes that can be opened in 30 seconds using simple manipulation techniques (Thanks Youtube).
At least this store was using the proper safe for the job, and was probably insured.
I plan to make life as difficult and time consuming as possible for the BG's with my safe. Having said that, I realize that there is no guarantee. That was my point, not just buy any ol cheap safe bec they can get in anything.
The first major step in overcoming this is not letting anyone know that you have anything valuable to protect. A jewelry store doesn't have this luxury, a homeowner does. Also realize that no professional burgular gives a shit about your CheyTac, your first gen Peacemaker that Wyatt Earp carried, and so on. Stepping up to TL rated safes and above are really for readily negotiable valuables and cash. You'd want a much better safe for a $100,000 coin collection than for a $100,000 Winchester collection. Cash is the real danger, a safe that insures for $100,000 in jewels, gold, or other widely recognized valuables will generally only insure for $10,000 in cash storage. Real security comes in the form of hardened storage, monitored alarms, and an armed human presence, this is why major banks are safe. I saw a bank in St Paul on TV once that housed the prohibition gangster's money along many others. St Paul at the time was a gangster's paradise where all the major crooks theives hung out, literally a den of theives. It had a vault door that was a few feet thick, an armored gun gallery with armed guards behind bulletproof glass watching the vault door, gas canisters in the ceiling, etc. There was even a range in the bank for the guards to train. This is where you start to get into guarantees, however, with artillery, or the right mix of explosives and armed, trained men, it could have been defeated.
The interesting thing that I've learned is that you can buy a real TL Jewelers safe for the price of a higher end RSC (4-$5K). It may be overkill, but why not? Buying used, you can do even better.
Originally Posted By OdDuMet:
The interesting thing that I've learned is that you can buy a real TL Jewelers safe for the price of a higher end RSC (4-$5K). It may be overkill, but why not? Buying used, you can do even better.
Which brand or models are you refering to?
Thanks,
Tag for interest
Originally Posted By OdDuMet:
The interesting thing that I've learned is that you can buy a real TL Jewelers safe for the price of a higher end RSC (4-$5K). It may be overkill, but why not? Buying used, you can do even better.
I bought a TRTL-30 Mosler off of Craigslist for $700. The damned thing weighs around 5k lbs, and I paid the guys $200 to deliver it. This 4x4x2' monster is one of the best purchases I've made. I also picked up a 5-drawer GSA security container (~550lbs) with an X––07 lock for $350 on another online auction.
It is all about timing and looking in the right places.
