The Crazy Way $30M Was Stolen From Safe Deposit Boxes
Using borescope cameras to peek inside bank safe deposit boxes, a trio of Brooklyn residents allegedly stole $30 million in cash, gold bars, jewelry and other valuables, according to newly unsealed federal indictments.
The three men were arraigned in Brooklyn federal court on
Tuesday, charged with money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to violate the
Travel Act in connection with a bank heist scheme in which they are said to
have posed as customers and created duplicate keys to clean out bank safes that
seemed less-than-secure.
Prosecutors say the heist occurred primarily in Eastern
Europe, where security camera footage picked up the men peeking into safes and
carrying suitcases through a hotel, where they allegedly met up to divide the
loot.
“The crimes we allege in this indictment read like something
straight out of Hollywood fiction,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge
William F. Sweeney Jr. in a statement Tuesday. “The thieves used sophisticated
tools to thwart security systems at foreign banks and tried to cover their
tracks by laundering money through U.S. banks.”
Posing as customers, the men allegedly rented safe deposit
boxes at banks that seemed to have lax security features, including being void
of cameras. They would scope out the facilities, using the camera scope to
photograph the insides of boxes they would later target.
The photos were then given to a keymake, and used to create
duplicate keys to open the boxes and steal cash, gold, jewelry, high-end
handbags, and other property.
In some cases, the banks were more secure than they
appeared, however. Hidden cameras picked up the men inspecting the safes, and
returning with a second key. Footage shows one of the defendants entering the
safe deposit box room at a Latvian bank and emptying “multiple boxes into his
bags,” according to a detention letter.
Then, footage shows the co-defendants meeting up at a nearby
hotel to split up the stolen property.
Financial records show that U.S. credit cards were used to
launder the money, through airline tickets, hotel room bookings, and checks to
the wife of defendant Val Cooper, who is believed to have been the leader of
the network.
Federal agents say they searched a storage unit in Brooklyn
controlled by Cooper, where they found a borescope and a safe deposit box lock.
Cooper now awaits a bail hearing, set for Friday.
Defendant Alex Levin was released on $500,000 bail, and will
be in home confinement with a GPS monitor awaiting trial.
The final defendant, Garri Smith, was denied bail during a
hearing in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy.
“We do not believe he’s a key participant” in the heist,
said Jeremy Iandolo, Smith’s attorney.
Prosecutors raised concerns, however, about Smith’s record
of frequent travel. Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Edelman said Smith “traveled
all around the world regularly, before the pandemic,” in connection with the
alleged bank heists.
Edelman rattled off a number of countries Smith visited
between 2016 and 2018: Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, Russia. He also
noted that Smith had changed his name, legally, but in an apparent attempt to
evade prosecution. Smith was formerly known as “Igor Berk” and “Igor
Berkovich.”
Prosecutors expressed concerns about Smith’s alleged use of
narcotics, saying that dealing with an addiction would make the defendant less
likely to comply with court orders upon release.
Judge Levy agreed those issues were relevant and ordered
Smith’s permanent detention awaiting trial.
The men face up to 20 years in prison if they are convicted
of money laundering conspiracy.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors said they worked on the
investigation along with European law enforcement, as well as the governments
of Azerbaijan, Latvia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
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