Multiple false alarms rang out at the
Los Angeles storage facility where a super heist occurred in the months preceding the brazen $30million theft on
Easter Sunday, it has emerged.
Burglars stole $30million under the cover of darkness from the
cash vaults at the GardaWorld facility in the San Fernando Valley, near Los Angeles, in one of the largest heists in US history on March 31.
But police service logs have revealed that officers were called to the facility at least 13 times before the super heist last month, with 12 of the calls logged as false alarms, according to records obtained by
TMZ. An alarm was triggered the day before the heist, the records showed, but was also reportedly dealt with as a false alarm.
Records further revealed that three calls for service, reported as triggered alarms, were logged the day of the heist. It was during one of these calls that police learned
millions had been stolen from a safe at the facility.
Law enforcement sources told TMZ the calls for service are on federal investigators' 'radar' and are 'being looked into as part of the investigation'. The insiders also claimed that investigators are reviewing staffing issues at the facility, including having insufficient security personnel on site, as part of their probe.
More than two weeks on, police have still not made any arrests in connection to the case. Both the LAPD and
FBI have told DailyMail.com that the 'investigation into the theft is ongoing'.
Officers received a call for service at the facility in the suburban Sylmar neighborhood at 4.30am on Easter Sunday.
Aerial footage of GardaWorld captured days after the theft showed a
large hole on the side of the building that appeared to be boarded up with plywood.
LAPD Cmdr. Elaine Morales previously revealed that the thieves were able to breach the building, as well as the safe where the money was stored. The operators of the business did not discover the massive theft until they opened the vault.
It is thought the gang broke in through a hatch on the roof and some how
circumnavigated the security systems to access the vaults without raising the alarm, before escaping through a hole on the southeastern side of the building.
The LAPD and FBI have been tight-lipped about the case, but are understood to be jointly investigating the theft 'to determine the person or group responsible.'
GardaWorld stores and transports cash for America's biggest banks in facilities across the country, as well as holding major government and diplomatic contracts and running security for events.
The Canada-based company, which also operates fleets of armored cars, did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
After the break-in, serious questions emerged over the security of GardaWorld sites after thieves were able to slip in and no one noticed the cash was missing until the next day.
According to an armored car and physical security expert, a facility like GradaWorld should have two alarm systems and a seismic motion detector right on the safe, as well as additional motion sensors throughout the building.
Randy Sutton, a former police detective in New Jersey and Las Vegas who investigated major crimes and high-end burglaries, said a
crime of this magnitude had likely been planned for months or longer and involved numerous people.
'This took a tremendous amount of research and tremendous amount of knowledge on the technical end regarding the circumvention of security systems and surveillance,' he said earlier this month.
Sutton said that much of the cash at a facility like the one operated by GardaWorld has already been in circulation, so the majority of it may not be traceable.
He added that law enforcement has almost certainly started interviewing anyone who worked at GardaWorld or knew anything about its security protocols.
'You can bet that not just current employees of that organization are going to be scrutinized, but prior employees as well,' he said.
Law enforcement officials have not discussed details of the cash that was stolen, but regardless of the denomination of the bills, such a massive amount of cash would be difficult to move and transport.
The weight of $1million in $100 bills alone is about 22 pounds (10 kilograms), according to
testimony from a US Treasury official to
Congress.
If the cash were in various denominations, like $5s, $10s and $20s, the weight of $1million in cash could be closer to 250pounds, which could bring the overall weight of the Easter weekend haul to about 3.5tons.
Experts suspect the criminals who pulled of the heist already had a plan in place for how to launder that much money.
In the days following the theft, a string of historic scandals surrounding the multi-national company have resurfaced with reports of millions of dollars of lost money, data breaches and cover-up schemes.
The
Tampa Bay Times in 2020 published an extensive investigation into a pattern of accidents and losses at GardaWorld facilities.
The Times alleged that 'Garda lost track of millions of dollars inside its vaults, then concealed the missing money from the banks that were its clients.'
At the time, they were storing money for at least five of the nation's biggest banks: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC Bank and TD Bank. They also store money for the federal reserve.
There are 425 branch offices across 45 countries, according to the company, with 132,000 security professionals.
According to their interview with a former branch manager at GardaWorld, Brian Newell, branches were ordered to move thousands of dollars between themselves so bank auditors wouldn't notice missing sums when they visited.
In total, the Times estimated they were missing $9million.
Another branch manager, Jammie Bolton, confirmed to the paper that employees would scramble to move money between banks' accounts when auditors came so that they could show them the amount they expected.
Other former employees told the outlet that they were shocked by how little the company did to keep track of the cash in its care, and there were too many losses to make it a series of mistakes.
Former managers told the Times that employees had 'ample opportunity' to steal, and thefts sometimes went unnoticed until clients pointed out money was missing.
As well as storing money, Garda runs a network of armored trucks that they use to shuttle cash between banks, businesses and their facilities.
But a separate Times investigation in 2020 alleged that the trucks are poorly maintained, lacking reliable brakes, seatbelts and sometimes even seats.
They found that hundreds of people had been injured in Garda crashes and at least 19 had died at the time.
On Garda's website, they say that 'Government and Diplomatic contracts are part of the lifeblood of GardaWorld' and boast of operations with British and American governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya.
The security of those operations has been called into question following the Easter weekend heist and recent reports of serious data breaches at the company.
On March 22 2024, GardaWorld Cash filed a notice of a data breach with the Attorney General of California, and weeks later, on April 17, they filed another notice with regulators in Maine for a data breach.
They had discovered that they had been the target of breach in November 2023 where an unauthorized person was able to access customers' names, social security numbers, insurance and health information.
In the Maine attack, the Attorney General said 39,928 people were affected.
As well as money storage and security, GardaWorld has been hired to set up and run migrant shelters in major US cities.
They were hired by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson under a $29million contract to build tent shelters - a project which has now been canceled over environmental concerns - and in Denver too.
The Denver project was canceled after community organizers pointed out Garda's poor record building shelters in Canada and Texas.
In Texas, the company built a center at Fort Bliss in El Paso which the US Department of Health And Human Services singled out for substandard living conditions and insufficient training of staff.
A
BBC investigation into the facility uncovered allegations of sexual abuse of children, lice outbreaks and poor nutrition.
In a statement at the time GardaWorld said they were not responsible for 'case management' at the site.
Although the largest cash heist in the world is believed to be the plundering of the Central Bank of Iraq during the US invasion in 2003, and other large cash heists have been pulled off in Europe and South America, the Los Angeles heist would be among the largest ever in the US.
The 1997 armed robbery of nearly $19million at the Los Angeles Dunbar Armored Co. depot was the largest cash robbery in US history at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times.
That caper, during which five armed robbers in black clothing and masks tied up a handful of workers at the depot, was planned with the help of a former employee at the facility. It took years to crack the case, and although all five culprits were caught, most of the cash was never recovered.
Although not a cash heist, nearly two years ago, as much as $100million in jewels and other valuables were stolen from a Brink's big rig at a Southern
California truck stop. The thieves haven't been caught.
