$3.3 Million Taken Off Armored Truck Is Untraceable Cash

The money taken in a mysterious theft from an Armored Transport of California truck this week--now estimated at $3.3 million--was virtually all untraceable cash, mainly used $10 and $20 bills, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

After a second day of investigation, police believe that the theft was an “inside job” that occurred while the driver and the guard left the truck unattended for as long as 15 minutes in a public alleyway just outside the company’s secured loading dock.

A source told The Times that the driver moved his truck from the underground dock and parked it near a guard tower in the alleyway after fellow drivers complained that it was blocking them from entering and exiting Armored Transport’s loading area.

Confirming the report, Lt. Doug Collisson also said intensive police interviews of two dozen employees who could have had access to the truck had begun Thursday afternoon. The interviews were to include polygraph tests for at least two key witnesses, he added.

Reportedly Unattended

In initial reports, investigators had said they were told that the truck had been parked inside Armored Transport’s headquarters while it was unattended with the cash inside.

Collisson, who heads LAPD’s special burglaries section, said he did not consider the driver or his guard, who were released after interviews with police, as suspects. “We’re interviewing them more as witnesses,” he said.

The theft, initially said to be up to $3 million in cash and checks, was reported to police about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, more than two hours after the truck left Armored Transport to deliver the money to a downtown Security Pacific Bank branch. Before calling police, Armored Transport’s security unit checked the firm’s offices for the missing money and searched the route traveled by the truck.

The truck’s driver, whose name has not been made public, told investigators there were two 3-by-4-foot canvas bins containing cash and checks in his truck when he locked it and left it temporarily unattended.

Then, when he and a passenger guard returned to depart for the bank, neither they nor the firm’s internal security officers checked to make sure the bins, which resemble laundry carts, were still there. Upon their arrival at Security Pacific, the pair discovered one of the bins, containing 30 bags filled with the $3.3 million in cash, missing. The second bin was still on board and untouched.

Collisson said he does not believe that the back door of the armored truck could have accidently opened, with the bin dropping out, during the two-mile trip from the company’s Pico Boulevard facility. The missing bin was discovered by police late Thursday several blocks from the bank at 3rd and Flower streets.

As for guards, drivers and others at the Armored Transport headquarters who were in the vicinity of the truck outside the firm’s offices, Collisson said, “We’ve not focused on any particular suspects at this point.”

“Two dozen, at least, could have possibly had access,” he said. “It was a very busy time of day.

“It’s frustrating to us and I’m sure the corporation really is frustrated that we haven’t been able to crack it,” Collisson added. “Of course we’re only two days into it at this stage.”

Company Not Talking

Armored Transport officials continued to refuse Thursday to discuss the theft or to provide details about the firm, one of the state’s largest with offices in eight California cities, which transports cash for many major grocery and department store chains.

However, an Armored Transport employee, who asked that his name not be disclosed, told The Times that he found it difficult to conceive of how so much cash had gotten out the door if proper security procedures had been followed.

“With the quantity and size, it’s like an elephant walking through downtown Los Angeles,” the employee said. “If you don’t notice it, you’re blind.”

According to one source at Armored Transport, “A lot of guys think . . . that they had it coming because security was kind of lax.”

Collisson and other Los Angeles police officials said it was the largest cash theft in Los Angeles in memory.