Britain Jewelry District Heist

Hatton Gargen Heist: More than £200M worth of jewellery and diamonds stolen

Posted by Yan Ashchin on

An audacious and accurately planned heist of Hatton Garden Depository shocked Britain being the biggest in UK history. The vault is located in London’s Holborn jewellery famous due to a large concentration of jewellery traders and stores. During four-day Easter holiday weekend a group of 7 robbers was penetrating concrete walls of the depository with the industrial Hilti DD350 drill they previously stole from equipment store. After robbers got into the building elevator shaft and started to drill their way into the vault it took them only two and half days to get into the depository.

According to The Times “panicked diamond dealers and gold traders feared that the culprits had cracked into as many as 300 secure vaults used to store millions of pounds worth of stock”. However thieves had their time to empty only 72 safety deposit boxes filled with watches, diamonds and jewellery. The total estimates of the items stolen totals £200 million (CAD 370 million) worth of gold, diamonds and jewellery. According to the Guardian one of the jewellers was worried about possible loss of £50,000 of uninsured jewellery and other valuables.

While this unprecedented heist were in motion the alarm system of the depository did not properly send the signal to the police department. When the police received the alarm signal it was classified as one where “no police interference required” and no units were dispatched to the scene for investigation. However, the good news are that robbers had left and exceptionally “chaotic” crime scene full with clues that are currently analyzed by experts and criminalists. Also, security cameras captured some footage of hair colour and partially exposed face of certain thieves. That should give some clues and a starting point in investigation of this strident heist.

Many owners of the deposit boxes who stored their valuables were saying that the depository was “the safest place around” and people are “extremely shocked” right now realizing that a place with this level of security can be cleared by a team of an old-school thieves. Latest news around the investigation are saying that the Hatton Garden heist may be organized and executed by the same team who cracked Volksbank vault in Berlin in January 2013.

Dubai Aerial Photo

Second Dubai Diamond Conference: diamonds and “The New Silk Road”.

Posted by Brinks Logistics Armors Security Service Admin on

The second Dubai Diamond Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd of April.
The main topic of the conference will be an expansion into Asian, Middle-Eastern, African market and overall “eastern” shift of the growing diamond market called collectively “The New Silk Road”. The important topics for discussion will include current diamond retail problems, synthetic diamond dilemma, and African region participation in diamond industry.

The primary guests of the conference will include executive officers of world’s biggest diamond corporations: Andrey Polyakoy, the Vice President of Alrosa, Paul Rowley, Executive Vice President of DeBeers and Carlos Sumbula, President of Endiama. These three companies compose the two thirds of the rough diamond market and have a huge impact on how and where the diamond industry is moving. As for other participants, the conference is bringing together over 500 diamond industry participants starting from direct jewellery traders to public workers and ministers.

Dubai is the perfect venue for the conference as the city represents an important and established part of the diamond market and community. “The city has brought new energy to the industry and much-needed gateway to Middle Eastern retail market. I am looking forward to having open discussion about the challenges of the diamond industry,” says President of World Diamond Council Edward Asscher.

The conference will give a starting point and new vector of diamond industry that will switch its focus towards the market and wealth emerging and growing in A10 countries.