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British police arrest seven suspected jewel thieves over Hatton Garden heist
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 19 May, 2015, 10:01pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 19 May, 2015, 10:39pm
Associated Press in London
A forensics expert enters the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit in London. Photo: EPA
More than 200 British police swooped on suspected jewel thieves across London on Tuesday, making arrests in the notorious Hatton Garden heist that took place in capital over the Easter weekend.
Triumphant police, whose early work on the case had been criticised, said they believe some of the stolen valuables has been recovered.
Scotland Yard said seven men, ranging in age from 48 to 76, had been arrested and were being questioned at a London police station after the morning raids. They were arrested in north London and in Kent, southeast of the city.
Commander Peter Spindler defended the police performance in the face of criticism of their previous efforts.
“At times we’ve been portrayed as if we have acted like “Keystone Cops” but I want to reassure you that in the finest traditions of Scotland Yard, these detectives have done their utmost to bring justice to the victims of this callous crime,” he said.
Police said bags containing a significant amount of high-value property were recovered at ones of the addresses and they are confident some of these were items stolen during the burglary, when thieves broke into a vault containing safe-deposit boxes.
Part of the investigation focused on how the robbers managed to climb through the relatively small hole they made. Photo: Reuters
Police acknowledged that the alarm system procedures in place during the robbery were not properly followed, giving the thieves plenty of time to break into the boxes and escape.
“We are now in a position to confirm that on this occasion our call-handling system and procedures for working with the alarm-monitoring companies were not followed,” police said.
“Our normal procedures would have resulted in police attending the scene, and we apologise that this did not happen.”
The gang members, dressed in fluorescent vests and hard hats, entered the high-security vault area in London’s world-famed diamond district carrying bags and wheeled garbage bins for carrying off the jewels.
They worked for two nights over the holiday weekend and left with the contents of dozens of safe-deposit boxes in a methodical heist that fascinated Britain.
Scotland Yard apprehend jewel thieves - including three pensioners - who pulled off diamond heist
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 20 May, 2015, 10:13pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 20 May, 2015, 10:15pm
Associated Press in London
Thieves drilled through a two-metre thick concrete wall to access safety deposit boxes in London's jewellery district.Photo: Kyodo
With meticulous planning and remarkable good fortune, the thieves who broke into a safe deposit vault in London's diamond district seemed to have pulled off the perfect jewel heist. But their luck ran out on Tuesday when more than 200 Scotland Yard officers closed in on them.
The nine arrests were a triumph for detectives whose early work had been criticised because of an embarrassing failure to respond to a midnight alarm at the start of a holiday weekend.
That gave the thieves more than 48 hours to carefully remove the contents of the safe used by jewellers in the famous Hatton Garden district.
The suspects, all Britons, were questioned in a London police station after coordinated morning raids in northern London and the southeastern county of Kent, Scotland Yard said. Three of the men were pensioners, aged 67, 74 and 76; the youngest was 43.
Scotland Yard said bags containing a significant amount of high-value property were recovered at one of the addresses but did not assign a value to the heist.
British media had speculated it was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The audacious robbery over the Easter weekend fascinated Britain. Dressed in fluorescent vests and hard hats, the thieves entered the high-security vault area in the London diamond district, carrying bags and wheeled rubbish bins they used for carrying off the booty.
To gain entry, they climbed down an elevator shaft and drilled through two-metre thick concrete walls, later making off with the contents of 72 safety deposit boxes.
Commander Peter Spindler on Tuesday defended the police performance in the face of the earlier criticism.
"At times we've been portrayed as if we have acted like Keystone Cops but I want to reassure you that in the finest traditions of Scotland Yard, these detectives have done their utmost to bring justice to the victims of this callous crime," he said.
Nonetheless, police took the unusual step of apologising for mishandling the initial alarm.
"Our call-handling system and procedures for working with the alarm-monitoring companies were not followed," they said. "Our normal procedures would have resulted in police attending the scene, and we apologise that this did not happen."
They asked victims to be patient while police sort out the recovered valuables in order to return them to their owners.
Eight men have already been remanded in custody in relation to the raid at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company.
16:39, Friday 22 May 2015
The raid took place over the Easter weekend
A ninth man has been charged with conspiracy to burgle in relation to the Hatton Garden jewellery raid last month.
John Harbinson, 42, of Benfleet, Essex will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday, a day after being arrested.
The vault at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London was broken into over the Easter weekend.
Eight men have already been remanded in custody over the incident and will appear at Southward Crown Court on Thursday, 4 June.
Terry Perkins, 67, Daniel Jones, 58 and Hugh Doyle, 48, all of Enfield, each face a charge of conspiracy to burgle.
William Lincoln, 59, of Bethnal Green, and John Collins, 74, of north London, Brian Reader, 76, and Paul Reader, 50, both of Dartford, and Carl Wood, 58, of Cheshunt, face the same charge.
Prosecutor Edmund Hall told the court yesterday that a vault containing 73 safety deposit boxes had been raided and that, while the total value of the goods stolen was not yet known, it ran "in excess of £10m".
The Met Police apologised for not following procedures when received a call from a security firm about an intruder alert at the premises at midnight on Good Friday.
