Police Probing Tunnel Theft Uncover More Digs

Los Angeles police detectives combing underground storm drains for evidence into last weekend’s tunnel burglary of a Westside bank found another tunnel Wednesday--this one 100 feet long--leading toward a savings and loan office in Beverly Hills.

Police blocked traffic on La Cienega Boulevard for more than two hours Wednesday afternoon until they could determine that the newly discovered tunnel had not undermined the pavement above.

It was not immediately clear, however, when the tunnel was dug or even how close it came to the Union Federal Savings & Loan Assn. at the corner of La Cienega and Wilshire boulevards. The association’s vault was not penetrated and the bank’s office manager, Harriet Davis, referred all questions to police.

“Our supposition is that the purpose of the tunnel was an effort to reach (Union Federal),” said Cmdr. William Booth, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman. He said there was no explanation of why the shaft was abandoned before it reached the savings and loan building.

Booth said that the mouth of tunnel, apparently cut from the wall of a storm drain, had been concealed “in some way.” Detectives discovered it around noon and began searching. Some construction equipment was found inside, Booth said.

He declined to estimate the tunnel’s width or height except to note “that it was big enough for a man to get through” with little difficulty.

Although the tunnel was found inside Beverly Hills, detectives there opted to turn the case over to Los Angeles police, who, along with FBI agents, are investigating last weekend’s burrowing burglary of the Bank of America branch at La Cienega and Pico boulevards, about a mile to the south.

The burglars who tunneled their way into the Bank of America vault and got away with $91,000 may be responsible for a similar heist in which $190,000 was taken last year from a First Interstate Bank branch in Hollywood, police have said.

In each case, investigators believe that burglars dropped through manholes and cut through the walls of underground storm drains to spend weeks excavating sophisticated tunnels leading underneath the banks. Then, using gas generators and heavy drilling equipment, the burglars cut through thick vault floors to rifle money boxes and, in the First Interstate burglary, safe deposit boxes.

No arrests have been made.