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This is not a still from the movie Ocean’s 13, but the first images from the audacious Hatton Garden jewel heist in which a gang of thieves got away with booty worth £60 million (Rs 569 crore).
The pictures show how the gang neatly tunnelled into the vault through concrete walls to ransack 72 security boxes over the Easter weekend.
The suspects used a heavy duty drill to bore this hole -- 20 inches deep, 10 inch high, and 18 inch wide -- to gain access to the vault. Through the hole, one can see the vault covered in dust and debris and the floor strewn with discarded safety deposit boxes and power tools, including an angle grinder, concrete drills and crowbars. Photograph: Metropolitan Police, London.
The gang smashed open approximately 70 safety deposit boxes before escaping with jewels believed to be worth in excess of £60million. Photograph: Metropolitan Police, London.
The robbers disabled the communal lift on the second floor, then used the lift shaft to get into the basement from the ground floor. They forced open shutter doors into the basement where Hatton Garden Safety Deposit is located, then made their way to the vault. Photograph: Metropolitan Police, London.
The dramatic pictures show the scenes of chaos found by detectives when they arrived at the crime scene in London, where burglars had strewn safety deposit boxes across the basement floor. Photograph: Metropolitan Police, London.
The group of thieves cut into the security door’s bars and gained entrance. Photograph: Metropolitan Police, London.
Even though, the thieves disabled or removed CCTV cameras in the area to cover their tracks -- footage shows they did not do a thorough enough job. Here’s a CCTV grab showing them leaving the building. Photograph: Metropolitan Police, London.