Modus Operandi (24 page)

The gates for these fences could be secured with either a chain and padlock or a lock requiring a key. Another mechanism for securing gates is a motor designed to open the gate either in or out or to slide it alongside the fence.

through deception. This deception is achieved by disguising oneself as a maintenance person or utility company worker. Large companies are always looking for maintenance employees because of the high turnover, so it may be fairly easy to gain access into a building to conduct a surveillance.

Uniforms, including police uniforms, are easily obtained through mail order catalogs and supply houses. Identification can either be forged or stolen and in some cases, purchased out of catalogs.

Security, no matter how tight, is always less during working hours. This was evident with the World Trade Center bombing. Mauro is a master at testing security procedures. He can talk his way through just about any circumstance and has never been denied access to any location. This includes military bases, law enforcement agencies, businesses, and into areas for employees only without identifying himself as law enforcement.

Another method of obtaining needed information on the security procedures of a building is to act as a prospective customer and question an employee about security procedures while acting concerned for your security. The salesperson will be glad to brag to you more than enough information to complete your task.

The whole purpose of this surveillance procedure, no matter how it is carried out, is to see if the difficulties involved justify the rewards.

Upon completing the surveillance, the burglar will decide what alarms there are, and how to disarm or avoid them. He will research into the mechanics of the alarms and practice on them so no mistakes will be made during the actual job.

Getting Inside the Property

On television and in movies, burglars dress in dark clothing and wear sneakers. This is actually pretty accurate because running and jumping is easier while wearing sneakers and the soft soles generate less noise while walking.

The burglar carries a tool kit with the tools he feels he may need to gain entry. Some of these tools will include long, strong, flathead screwdrivers for prying, steel pry bars, flashlights, chisels, small mallets, jacks, hacksaws, battery-powered drills and saws. Gloves are always worn and vary from medical latex to leather workman gloves. Ski masks are optional. More enterprising burglars will carry police scanners to monitor local police communications and a portable radio handset for communications from inside to a lookout.

If the gate is secured by a chain and padlock, the burglar will just cut the chain or the padlock itself with bolt cutters. This whole procedure will take under ten seconds. The only problem with gated areas is that they are usually well lit, can be seen from the road, and may be guarded.

An easier method is to simply take the bolt cutters to a secluded part along the fence and snip the soft metal holders that secure the fencing to the fence post. This accomplishes two things: entry can be gained by simply lifting the bottom of the fence up and sliding under and there are no visible signs that the fence has been tampered with unless you are standing inches away from the fence post.

Getting Inside the Building

Our clever burglar has entered through the fencing and has observed that the doors are steel-reinforced with locks designed to slow entry into the premises. The windows are protected by steel bars. Some protective bars are designed with an interior bar that spins. If one were to saw through them, you would reach the inner bar that will spin as the saw blade comes in contact with it, making it impossible to cut completely through the bar.

We have seen resourceful thieves use building jacks or vehicle jacks to open the bars. The jacks are placed between the bars and, by activating the jack, the bars are bent apart so that one could squeeze through. Another method of defeating these bars is to pry them off the window itself or attack and remove a piece of the building where the bars are attached.

The burglar will use a method of entry that will be easiest and have the least chance of detection. Climbing on a roof, cutting a small hole, and lowering oneself down not only defeats perimeter alarms but gives a view of the room before entering. Another method is breaking through an outside wall to gain entry.

The whole premise of gates, fences, barbed wire, steel-reinforced doors and windows is not to keep people from getting in but to slow them down and give the law enforcement community a chance for apprehension.

If the merchandise inside the building warrants it, there will be armed guards on a twenty-four hour basis. Guards vary from a night watchman with a flashlight who walks through the building hourly to an armed patrol watch. In some cases, guard dogs will be used in addition to human guards or alone inside the buildings and in the gated area. These guard dogs sometimes have their voice boxes removed to stop them from barking so that they can more easily sneak up on the intruder. However, someone entering a building can disable guard dogs by sedating, poisoning, or simply shooting them.

Inside the Building

Once inside the building, the burglar will encounter a number of obstacles: Additional fencing and gates, brick and concrete barriers, and additional steel reinforced doors. The doors would most likely have alarms along with motion detectors protecting the hallways.

Alarm Systems

A major obstacle the burglar must overcome is the means of detection. Detection is accomplished through visual sightings by guards, special alarm systems to show the presence of an entry, and video systems that may be manned or recorded for viewing at a later date.

The only problem with video recording is that the thief may locate and remove the videotape before leaving. This is true in both manned and unmanned video stations. Sometimes the recorders are not turned on or the tapes are used over and over and the quality of the recording is poor, making video systems useless to the owner.

Alarms can be activated through audio transmission, by touch or vibration, light or heat sensitivity, and motion within the room. Transmission of the alarm can be sent over regular telephone wires or by cellular transmission. These outgoing alarm signals can be transferred to a central alarm center, the area police department or the business owner's home.

Once the alarm is activated, an audio alarm may or may not sound in the building. In some of the cases we have worked on, we observed that if there was an audio alarm present, it was disconnected prior to activation, or smashed from its stand shortly after sounding.

Alarm systems are powered by an alternating current—the electricity that comes from the electric pole that powers your home. Good alarm systems usually have a direct current or battery-powered backup. The backup is an additional protection from power loss. This power loss can be from a problem at the electric company, from storms causing black outs, or from the burglar cutting the power off to the building. As soon as the AC power is disconnected, the DC power activates, continuing the protection.

Educated thieves know that one method of disabling an alarm is to discontinue electricity to the building which they intend to burglarize. Cutting the electrical wiring leading into the building is one method of doing this, but it is quite dangerous. A safer and more effective way is to remove the electric meter from the meter box. This is accomplished by cutting the banding wire, undoing the locking clip, removing the band and pulling the meter straight toward you to disconnect the power.

You still have to worry about the DC backup system but once you gain entry into the building and locate the alarm system, you can then cut the wires coming from the batteries to disable it. By disconnecting the batteries, the alarm has no power to operate. Most good alarm systems not only have an audible alarm, whether it is a siren or a bell, but they will also have the ability to call an outside agency to alert them to the intrusion. One way to stop the call to an agency is to find the telephone lines going into the building and cut them with a wire cutter. But if the building has a cellular backup, the call will still go out.

The merchandise our burglar is seeking will then be located in a safe. This safe may or may not be hidden from view. In some cases, there will be two safes, one in plain view and the other hidden. The reason for this is the thief will spend most of his time attempting to open the first safe and may be happy with the few trinkets located inside.

This two-safe method is a growing trend in residential buildings of wealthy people. We recently heard a story where a wealthy businessman had two safes installed in his home. One his wife was aware of and the other she was not. Unknown to the husband, the wife had installed a safe for herself. The reason for all this security is simple, the amateur will not attempt entry and the professional will be delayed and hopefully apprehended.

Safecracking

Safecracking is the glamorous profession among thieves. A lot of training and experience is needed to accomplish this task. We have personally been to quite a few burglaries where safes have been involved. In our combined law enforcement careers dealing with all types of safes from the small personal safe to large bank vaults, we have never run across a safe that has been cracked or opened without force. Don't get us wrong. It does happen, but in all the safes that we have worked on, brute force was used to open them. Very rarely do you hear about a safe being opened by someone turning the combination dial—unless it was an inside

job and they knew the combination of the lock.

The outside surface of a safe is one of the most difficult from which to obtain any type of latent fingerprint impressions. The safe manufacturer coats the outside surface with a material that makes them more secure, but makes our job a lot harder. This coating is either a wrinkled surface paint or the metal itself is indented. Safe industry people tell us they do this because it makes the outside of the safe more durable to nicks and scratches.

The first and easiest way to gain entry into a safe is, if the safe is small enough, to remove it from the premises where it can be worked on without worry of detection. Safes are designed to be placed in floors, walls and vaults. In vault types, it may be easier to gain entry by attacking the perimeter walls rather than the door of the safe. You would be surprised at how much time and expertise that goes into the vault door only to have the walls of the safe built of simple wallboard and 2 x4s. This often happens in strip mall banks.

If you are going to attempt to gain entry by unlocking the safe, you will need to take with you a number of tools. You will need a heavy bag, preferably canvas or nylon to carry the tools. You will need flashlights to light the way, at least one that is the kind that you wear around your head to keep your hands free. Chisels, pry bars and hammers are also needed to assist you in forcing your way to your goal. Screwdrivers, needle-nosed pliers, battery-powered drills and saws will also be needed. A set of lock picking tools may also come in handy.

One tool for our high-tech thieves will be an amplifier microphone, which is placed on the safe door near the dial. By turning the dial left and then right or left depending on the safe, you can hear distinctive clicks as the inner mechanisms are engaged. These clicks are counted and translated into the numbers on the dial and then the safe can be opened.

Drilling the lock is another alternative. This is accomplished by first locating where the bolt hits home. You will use your amplifying microphone and open and close the

handle quickly while moving the microphone around to determine where the bolt
is
located. You drill in this location and with any luck, the safe will open.

This bolt area on modern safes has reinforcement plates where a drill will not penetrate. One method of dealing with this problem is by preheating the area with a torch, letting it cool down, drilling a while and then heating the area again. Repeat this process until entry is gained.

When all else fails you may have to punch the safe. This method consists of striking the dial on the safe door hard with a large hammer to tear this dial off. Once you have done this your next step is to take a steel hole punch and try to punch out the center spindle. In some cases, this will allow the safe to open.

High-speed saws or grinders with carbon blades can be used to cut around or through locking mechanisms. Acetylene torches can also be used to cut into the safe, but care must be taken so as not to destroy the contents of the safe.