You are tasked with carrying $100 million worth of jewels from San Mateo to Los Angeles -- a trek less than 400 miles.
Do you have several people in the armored truck, including with the jewels themselves, with locked and loaded weapons?
Do you perhaps have a second vehicle following, to make sure everything stays okay?
Do you at least drive straight there, without stopping anywhere and leaving the truck vulnerable to robbery?
Apparently for Brinks, the answer to all of the above is NO!
It was one of the largest jewelry heists ever, yet is getting relatively little attention, and there are many questions still surrounding it.
This article does a good job briefly explaining it, and looking at some of the oddities.
On July 10, Brinks was contracted to transport over $100 million in jewels from San Mateo (near San Francisco) to Los Angeles, from one jewel show to another. A single armored truck was commissioned for this, and the journey began after dark. There were only two guards present, and no other vehicles following. The drive is only about 360 miles.
For unknown reasons, they stopped at a Flying J truck stop in Frazier Park, California. This is being reported as an unincorporated area of Lebec, which is technically is, but this Flying J is actually on the outskirts of Frazier Park, which is a mountain town between Santa Clarita and Bakersfield. I am familiar with this truck stop, and have been there several times, as I usually visit Frazier Park at least twice a year.
Anyway, the truck was parked for 25 minutes. Supposedly both guards got out and left the jewels alone! In that time, somehow thieves knew to hit the truck, and knew how to disable to lock in the back, and were able to steal all of the jewels.
The thieves were never seen, and never apprehended.
Here's a picture of some of the jewels stolen:
The guards never explained why they left the truck unattended, nor why it was necessary to stop for 25 minutes at a truck stop when they could have easily done this important delivery nonstop, as it was only 370 miles. Of course, there's good reason to suspect they may have been in on it.
Also, the value of the jewels was in question, with Brinks insisting that they were worth only $10 million, and the jewelers insisting it was over $100 million.
Here's a picture of the Flying J, which for some reason is also being sued:
Now more answers are coming out, thanks to a lawsuit,
described in detail by the LA Times.
It appears that both sides were stupid, in this entire mess. The jewelers were intentionally underdeclaring the value of their merchandise to be shipped, and had been doing so for a long time, in order to save money on insurance charged by Brinks. These geniuses apparently didn't realize that they were simply screwing themselves if something ever happened to the jewels. The amount declared was only $8.7 million, when in reality over $100 million of jewels were actually being shipped.
On Brinks side, they had two stooge drivers, who were more concerned with following Department of Transportation sleeping rules than getting many millions of dollars worth of jewels to their destination safely. One of the drivers entered the truck's sleeping bay when the other driver stopped to use the bathroom about 55 miles north of Frazier Park. The non-sleeping driver got hungry in this time, and decided to pull over in Frazier Park to get some food at the Flying J. He did not wake the other driver to keep watch over the truck, because DoT rules state that a sleeping driver cannot be awakened by the other if the sleeper has already worked 14 hours that day. It is assumed that this was why the second driver didn't wake him, and instead chose to leave the truck unguarded! LOL!!!
It's unclear why they assigned a driver for this route who had already worked a lot that day, and would need to go to sleep at some point. A truck can complete this drive in about 6-7 hours.
It's still possible the drivers were in on it, as they parked the truck out of view of security cameras in a dark area of the Flying J. The sleeping story might have been concocted in order to explain how the jewels were accessed. It is still unknown how the thieves knew to hit this particular truck, unless they had either been following it all the way from San Mateo (about 300 miles), or saw an armed guard leave the truck, and figured something valuable must be in there.
Any comment, Mumbles?