In February 2015, there was a burglary of a pawn shop in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, where the burglars escaped with US $3.5 million in cash and jewels. It was only discovered the following morning when employees arrived for work. This is in spite of the fact that the premises had electronic security systems.
No electronic security system can prevent a burglary as they are designed to alert individuals that a burglary is taking place or to provide evidence after the burglary has taken place. The issue then becomes how could the burglars have broken into the premises, taken the items and then left and no one was alerted. This incident highlights the increasing knowledge and consequent professional approach of Caribbean burglars and the fact that in the design of an electronic security system one has to take into account all possibilities.
Many times when persons are looking at premises, they view a wall, roof or window and form the opinion that it is solid and impenetrable. They then, when designing the electronic protection, do not electronically cover that area because of their opinion that the area is too hard for someone to get through. At times, the non-coverage of an area is the result of a customer trying to reduce the cost of the electronic security protection or of a security company trying to lower the cost of their quotation so that they can get the job. Often the view of impenetrability is based on their opinion that they cannot break through the wall and so they assume that no one else can but the question should really be – Can I break through that wall or window if I had the correct tools and sufficient time?
In this particular burglary case, the cash and jewels were in steel safes inside a concrete vault room which had electronic protection on the door leading into it. The premises also had CCTV. The uninitiated might again ask: How could these burglars break in undetected and get to the valuables and then escape without the alarm system notifying anyone?
For this burglary, the thieves came through the roof of the building and then used drills to bore a large hole through the slabs that form the top of the concrete vault room. Once inside, they used portable blow torches to cut into the steel safes. After gaining access into the safes, they removed the valuables and then left via the route that they had used for entry. Before making their exit, they made sure to remove the DVR that contained the images from the CCTV cameras.
Many individuals would have thought that steel safes inside a completely concrete room provide a very secure environment especially with alarm protection on the door to the room. Burglaries such as this one, however, demonstrate the weakness in thinking that steel and concrete alone are sufficient for protection. To the question, "can I break through that wall or window if I had the correct tools and sufficient time", these burglars have shown that you can and it is to be noted that they did not interfere with the door that had the electronic protection thus not triggering the alarm system.
One should not lose hope and think that it is impossible to protect their valuables; it merely requires the appropriate design of the electronic security system. In this situation, it appears that the designer only considered the possibility of someone breaking into the room through the door. If, however, an electronic security system includes vibration sensors on the walls and roof, then the burglars would be detected as soon as they attempt to drill through the concrete roof. Thus, there would have been notification of the burglary attempt before the thieves manage to enter the room and so give responding agencies the opportunity to be on the scene before the thieves can get the valuables.
Another detection device that could be incorporated into the design would be a Passive Infra-Red (PIR) Beam placed inside to room to detect anyone who enters the room from any side once the alarm has been turned on. We would not, however, recommend relying solely on a PIR as this detects when the intruders are already inside and they could "grab and go" before response arrives.
Often, in the urban areas in the Caribbean, there is significant building rumble resulting from the passage of heavily laden trucks and/or vehicles with excessively loud sound systems. Some persons are concerned about the high number of false alarms that may be caused by this passing external vibration and so are reluctant to recommend or install vibration sensors in commercial urban settings. While this may be a valid concern, it should not deter persons from using such sensors as these sensors can be adjusted to reduce their sensitivity to such external vibration. Where the sensors are set with reduced sensitivity, then they should definitely be combined with another internal detection device such as a PIR so that there is double layer protection.
There are also other detection devices that can be incorporated into the security system to provide the protection through alerting of intrusion attempts. The overriding theme, however, must be that one should not assume that because you cannot determine how to break into a place that no one can, rather one should identify all possible entry points and seek to ensure that these are covered.
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