Reply to post: Re: Heh

Heistmeisters crack cost of safecrackers with $150 widget

eldakka

Re: Heh

Interesting, I just read up on this, and according to a Wired story after interviewing one of the leaders of the heist, Notarbartolo, it seems:

1) Notarbartolo had business hours access to the vault as he was a customer (for 18 months prior) who had a safety-deposit box in the vault;

2) they were able to install a camera outside the vault (probably by Notarbartolo who had legitimate access) that allowed them to see the door so that they could see the code entered.

3) the original key was kept in a utility closet nearby...which they guessed by the fact that the guard who opened the vault every morning went into this closet before opening the door.

4) Notarbartolo's legitimate access allowed him to degrade the internal heat/motion sensor (apparently he sprayed hair-spray on the sensor during a visit the day before) that degraded it long enough to enable it to be deactivated once the vault door was opened.

The only reason they were caught was due to sloppiness in destroying evidence linking them to the crime - they had a bag of evidence to burn, but it burst open on private property that ran alongside a highway, and they didn't clean it up, they left it there and it was found.

Based on the description of the criminals involved, I find this sloppiness hard to believe. Notarbartolo had an apartment in the region they had used for days, they could have burnt most of the evidence in small wastebin fires inside the apartment before they went to break into the vault. Or surely as part of the plan it wasn't "let's find somewhere to burn the evidence as we flee", surely they would have already picked several suitable locations (1 or 2 on each exit route) that they could use, rather than hoping to just find one.

There was other hard to believe sloppiness - they kept receipts for the buying of equipment such as surveillance systems.

It looks to me that they wanted to get caught. Which is understandable. They had potentially made off with $10+ million EACH. They would be running and looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.

Notarbartolo is serving 10 years (well HAS served, he would have been released a year or 2 ago now). Which means he's served his time, he's been convicted. Now he gets to live out the rest of his life without having to look over his shoulder as he's already served his time. While I wouldn't consider it a fair trade-off, 10 years in prison with $10+ million to live on afterwards...some, especially those who have been criminals for years, might consider it a good trade-off. Especially since he'd have enough to 'buy protection' in prison. He was wearing a Rolex during his prison interviews with Wired! Not to mention Notarbartolo is connected to the Italian Mafia, supposedly his cousin was tapped to head the Sicilian Mafia, that would buy a lot of protection all by itself.

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