Neighbors heard weird noises during mysterious $30M LA cash heist: ‘Embedded in my head’
Neighbors reportedly heard bizarre whirring noises around the time $30 million in cash was stolen from a Los Angeles-area vault Sunday — but the robbers still got away without a trace.
“That sound is embedded in my head,” one woman told the Los Angeles Times of the two-hour-long racket she heard coming from the GardaWorld facility in Sylmar on Easter Sunday.
“My mind is still going crazy over what happened. I know it’s just money, but they’re invading your space,” the resident, who lives around the corner in the Tahitian Mobile Home Park, said of the heist, which is one of the largest in Los Angeles history.
Sandi Gomez, another mobile park local, said she did not notice anything out of the ordinary.
The FBI stopped by on Monday and asked if she “saw or heard anything suspicious around 4 a.m.” Sunday, she told the outlet.
The thieves are believed to have breached GardaWorld — which stores cash from businesses in the Southland area — via the roof after first attempting to break in through the side of the building, authorities previously said.
The unknown suspects managed to open the vault without activating any alarms — and staff did not even know the theft took place until Monday morning.
George Alhosry, owner of the Kwik Market and Deli down the street from the cash facility, said his business’ Wi-Fi was down for most of Sunday.
“We couldn’t access the Lotto,” he told the LA Times, adding that cellphone calls also would not go through.
It is not clear if the Wi-Fi issue is connected to the robbery, but Wi-Fi jammers are a common tool used by robbery gangs who target homes in Southern California, the outlet noted.
The gadgets allow seasoned thieves to shut off security cameras that can capture video or still images of the crime in action, it explained.
The GardaWorld heist is under investigation by the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. As of Friday afternoon, no suspects had been identified.
The shocking crime worried some locals, but others remained more focused on the everyday threat of street crime as opposed to million-dollar hijinks.
“Five weeks ago, the police brought a dog in, they searched the area for an active shooter — but it wasn’t in the news,” one man, Victor Benitez, told the LA Times.
“I would not recommend living here,” he added.
