Burglars broke into a Los Angeles money storage facility on Easter Sunday, avoiding the alarm system before making out with as much as $30 million in cash, a law enforcement official said on Wednesday.
The heist marks one of the largest in the city’s history and has left authorities baffled by how it was pulled off, The Los Angeles Times reported. LAPD Cmdr. Elaine Morales said the burglary occurred at night at an unnamed facility in the suburb of Sylmar. The burglars appeared to have broken into the facility through the roof and breached a safe in the building where money from businesses in the area is stored.
The massive theft wasn’t discovered until the facility’s operators went in on Monday and opened the safe. It was unclear how the burglars avoided the alarm system, and the safe showed no signs of a break-in, according to the Times. Law enforcement sources also told the outlet that very few people knew that the safe was holding a huge amount of cash.
“It’s just mind blowing that you would never suspect it,” a man who works at the facility told ABC 7. “$30 million in the Valley, gone. How? Why? I’m still trying to process it. Was it an inside job? Was it just one person? Was it a group? You know, there’s a lot of questions.”
The LAPD, along with the FBI, is investigating the heist.
“The LAPD and the FBI have a joint investigation into an alleged burglary that occurred on Sunday evening, March 31, 2024. No additional information related to the incident is being released,” the agencies said in a joint statement.
Previously, the largest cash heist in L.A.’s history took place in 1997 when burglars stole nearly $19 million from an armored truck facility, the Times reported. Two people were later caught by police and convicted for the robbery.
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Nearly two years ago, thieves took as much as $100 million in jewelry from an armored truck. The heist began and ended in 27 minutes while one of the truck’s drivers was asleep in the vehicle and the other driver was eating inside a Flying J truck stop. Authorities have yet to solve the L.A. jewelry heist.