Seven arrested over Hatton Garden heist

Detectives from the Flying Squad investigating the burglary at Hatton Garden have this morning, Tuesday 19 May, arrested seven men for conspiracy to burgle and recovered a large amount of property.

At approximately 10:30hrs more than 200 officers raided 12 addresses in north London and Kent and arrested the suspects.

Police identified the suspects only using letters in their initial statement. Their ages are: [A] aged 67; [B] 74; [C] 58; [D] 48; [E] 59; [F] 76 and [G] 50.

[A], [B], [C] and [D] were arrested in Enfield; [E] was arrested in east London; [F] and [G] were arrested in Dartford.

A number of large bags containing significant amounts of high value property have been recovered from one address. Officers say they are confident these are items stolen during the burglary.

All seven men have been taken to a London police station. Searches at the addresses are ongoing.

In its statement, Scotland Yard said: “Over the last six weeks Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad has worked relentlessly, supported by officers from covert policing and major crime commands, to track down those responsible, and recover what was taken. An intense investigation has been undertaken to ensure the victims, the individual box owners, the small businesses and the wider Hatton Garden community can get justice.

“In respect of the police response to the intruder alarm we are now in a position to confirm that on this occasion our call handling system and procedures for working with the alarm monitoring companies were not followed. Our normal procedures would have resulted in police attending the scene, and we apologise that this did not happen.

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“In this case, the owners had been notified by the alarm company and a security guard attended the building but saw nothing more than our officers would have done had they been deployed.

“We are working closely with the alarm industry to improve the call handling and response processes at both ends to ensure nothing like this happens again. A more detailed investigation into the defeat of the alarm system at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd is ongoing and we will share the lessons learned with the business community in due course.

“We recognise the huge public interest in this investigation. Since it is possible that a future prosecution will take place, we ask media to consider carefully the impact on future criminal proceedings of any detailed material that is published now.

“This is a fast paced and ever expanding investigation. We will keep media as updated where possible, whilst ensuring we protect information that may become evidence that is put before a jury.”