Hatton Garden jewellery heist: Police offer £20,000 reward for information leading to conviction of thieves
Version 0 of 1. Police are offering a £20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the “Ocean’s 11 type team” involved in the burglary of safety deposits at Hatton Garden. Detectives trying to uncover who was behind the audacious operation have also released an image of a Hilti DD350 drill that was likely to break into the building over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Speaking on BBC’s Crimewatch, Detective Superintendent Craig Turner, head of the Flying Squad investigating the case, told viewers that the operation was executed by an “almost Ocean's 11 type team”. Mr Turner said: “This was a particularly ambitious burglary to say the least and has affected so many victims. "People's property has been taken, people's pensions, people's heirlooms which obviously can't be replaced by insurance firms. "We may well be misled - this is carried out by an almost Ocean's 11 type team, but in essence there are victims behind this and these are callous thieves." Mr Turner went on to urge anyone who saw anything suspicious in the Hatton Garden area during the time of the theft to come forward. He also called on members of the criminal community who may have seen the “specialised” drill in the hands of a gang to get in touch. Some six victims of the raid remain unidentified, he added, telling them to contact the police incident room. Police believe the raid was executed over a four day period between 2 April and 5 April, with the gang entering the building through a communal entrance before climbing down into the lift shaft to the basement. They then forced open shutter doors and drilled an enormous hole - 20in (50cm) deep, 10in (25cm) high, and 18in (45cm) – into the vault wall. This enabled them to seize the contents of 72 boxes, believed to amount to as much as £60million. Staff only discovered the wide-scale thefts when they returned to the building on 7 April. Scotland Yard is also reviewing why officers were not sent to investigate an intruder alarm set off at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit shortly after midnight on the Friday. A call was received by the force's Computer Aided Despatch system from the security company but no police response was deemed necessary. Additional reporting by PA |