Just before midnight on Good Friday, three men arrived at AA Diamonds in an ADT vehicle, wearing ADT uniforms.
|||A few hours before midnight on Good Friday, three men arrived at AA Diamonds in Bedfordview in an ADT vehicle. They wore ADT security uniforms, including bulletproof vests and helmets.
Several hours later they raced off with R23 million worth of precious stones – after wiping their raid off the CCTV tapes.
“They made it look easy,” said hefty Palestinian-born diamond dealer Shibne Mohammed.
He is blaming the private security company, ADT, for the heist
The initial Trojan Horse operation – with the thieves entering and holding up the guards – was caught on CCTV, which has been handed over to police and a team of private investigators.
“Everyone had gone home at 2pm,” Mohammed said.
At 8.30pm, two guards at the Wall of China office block claim they opened the gate for an ADT vehicle, believing the men were patrolling the area.
“The guards recognised one of the ADT security personnel,” Mohammed said.
Seconds later, several shots were fired. The thieves used cable ties to bind the two guards’ hands and feet, and dragged them to the basement, where a third armed thief kept watch.
The other two thieves then forced open AA Diamonds’ front gate, picked the door lock without shattering the glass, and broke the locks of two more wooden doors in order to enter Mohammed’s office.
Along the way they removed all the surveillance cameras and the hidden security laser beams, disconnected the phone lines, and removed the hard drives from the surveillance computers.
“No one could get into our security system unless they had the override master codes. They went through the place like professionals, like people who installed the system,” said Mohammed.
The control panel for the alarm and the radio system was not smashed – it was carefully dismantled, and the relevant wires had been cut to disable the alarm and clear the memory of the surveillance systems.
Next to Mohammed’s mahogany desk and big black leather swivel chair sat a 1-ton safe, made of two plates of steel and reinforced by 15cm of concrete on each side.
Scuff marks on the grey carpet indicate that the criminals dragged the safe away from the wall and towards the centre of the room, before cutting a large rectangular hole in the back.
“They had between six and eight hours and some heavy grinding machinery. They took their time,” Mohammed said.
“They (ADT) are supposedly a state-of-the-art security company, but their own people robbed us,” he said.
On Wednesday, ADT central region managing director Roy Rawlins said his company was investigating the matter.
“Our internal investigator as well as several senior managers have been on site and we have been in contact with the owner of the business. We are also working closely with the SAPS in order to ensure a thorough investigation is carried out.”
Investigating officer Detective warrant officer Moses Dlamini was at the ADT offices when The Star phoned.
He confirmed that the burglars had arrived in an ADT vehicle and had been dressed for the part.
“We are still trying to establish whether they really worked for ADT or were impostors,” he said.
The INHEP digital security company has studied the security panels and confirmed Mohammed’s suspicions.
technician Isaac Mphuthi said: “The panel did not record anything on it. It was very clean, as if it was brand new… It looks like the unit was defaulted and then the cables were cut.”
With not a gem left to sell, Mohammed sat back in his chair and sighed: “My lifetime’s work, saving for 20 years, and it all disappeared in a few hours… If I wasn’t a Muslim I would put a gun to my head and finish my life because there is nothing left anyway.”
yusuf.omar@inl.co.za
The Star