Safe Deposit Boxes Raided In Jewellery Quarter

Up to 300 safe deposit boxes have been broken into at a central London vault over the Easter weekend.

A statement from the Metropolitan Police said heavy cutting equipment had been used to get into a vault at the premises in Hatton Garden.

Officers from the Flying Squad are currently at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit as the investigation continues.

The suspects are believed to have used a lift shaft to gain access to the vault.

Sky's Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said: "I'm told that there are 600 boxes on the premises, 300 of which have been raided.

"The suspects have had perhaps several days (over Easter weekend) in which to get in. One report I'm told suggested that they used a lift shaft at some stage to get into the centre, which must be pretty heavily protected.

"It's probably going to be some days before we get an idea of exactly how much has been stolen or what indeed has been stolen."

The area is known as London's jewellery quarter and the safe deposit boxes at the premises are mainly used by jewellers in Hatton Garden to store jewellery and loose diamonds in packets.

Lewis Malka, a diamond jewellery expert who works on Hatton Garden, tweeted: "Quiet day in the office and then I found out one of my client's antique bracelets was stolen in the Hatton Garden robbery."

Mr Malka said the haul was likely to be worth "hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds".

"Most of the people who have got safe deposits there are people in the trade," he said.

"I know for a fact that some of my work colleagues have got boxes down there and we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds in goods."

Former Flying Squad chief Barry Phillips told Sky News that the investigation would centre on how the thieves managed to evade tight security.

"How did the villains get into the premises, how did they get around security measures and how did they get out?" he asked.

"Security has become more technology driven to take away human error, but you still have to have security guards patrolling the area."

In 2003, cash and valuables worth an estimated £1.5m were stolen after a suspect emptied safe deposit boxes at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Co while posing as a customer.

In July 1987, the Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Centre was hit by one of the largest robberies in history. Two armed robbers asked to rent a safe deposit box and produced handguns after they were shown to the vault before making off with an estimated £60m hoard.

Valerio Viccei was arrested as he returned to England to ship his Ferrari Testarrosa to Latin America. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.