I almost missed this strange story out of LA, back on page 35 of yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times. It was about a record $30M heist on Easter Sunday at a “cash storage facility” in the San Fernando Valley. OK, I know what you’re wondering. Did the S-T really have a page 35? Yes, the Saturday print edition has an extra-big sports section on top of 12 pages of mainly syndicated news and (thankfully) Sudoku and the patternless crossword puzzle.
I know what else you’re probably thinking. Isn’t a cash storage facility just another name for a bank? Obviously not. It seems some folks keep that much cash lying around in unguarded buildings.
The thieves knew the money was there, cut a hole in the roof, dropped in, opened the safe quietly, and walked out undetected with all the loot. KABC-TV News video showed a hole on the side of the structure that was covered by a piece of plywood. So the thieves may have exited there instead of using the front door. You know how tough it is to cut through plywood. Apparently, nobody at the company even knew the money was gone until they opened the safe on Monday morning.
If you’ve ever seen any heist movies, you’re thinking, inside job. Right?
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But what mainly caught my attention, halfway through the story, was the name of the company, GardaWorld. It’s the same company that a desperate Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson quietly contracted with last September, to build and manage the city’s new tent shelters to house thousands of arriving migrants.
Randy Sutton, a former police detective in New Jersey and Las Vegas who investigated major crimes and high-end burglaries, said a crime of this magnitude had likely been planned for months or longer and involved numerous people. He added that law enforcement has almost certainly started interviewing anyone who worked at GardaWorld or knew anything about its security protocols.
Chicago hired GardaWorld despite,
Mass protests against the decision.
GardaWorld has been hired to build tent shelters after hurricanes but doesn’t have documented experience sheltering migrants seeking asylum in sanctuary cities, according to the Denver Post.
A similar deal with Garda to shelter migrants in Denver had been abruptly halted after community organizers and officials lambasted dire conditions alleged at immigrant detention centers built by the firm in Canada and Texas.
A BBC investigation found allegations of sexual abuse and rape of children, COVID and lice outbreaks, a lack of clean clothes, and hungry children being served undercooked meat at Garda’s Fort Bliss facility.
At another “immigrant detention center” allegedly run by GardaWorld in Quebec, Canada, immigrants inside went on a hunger strike three times to protest “life-threatening” conditions during the pandemic’s peak, and one immigrant later died after being found in “medical distress,” according to a report presented to Denver’s mayor by the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee that cited Canadian media outlets.
A Tampa Bay Times investigation in 2020 found its armored truck division, tasked with transporting millions of dollars across the country, took shortcuts that put unsafe trucks on the roads — resulting in nearly two dozen deaths of drivers and pedestrians.
Aegis Defense Services, a subsidiary acquired by GardaWorld in 2015 that is named in Chicago’s contract for the migrant tent camps, allegedly recruited former child soldiers from Sierra Leone to protect U.S. military bases in Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq…
GardaWorld has been a leading provider of security services (mercs) in Iraq since 2003 with over 4,000 personnel working across 35 dedicated projects.
Not to mention that Iraq was the scene of the largest cash heist in the world, the plundering of the Central Bank of Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003.
I’m in no way implying that GardaWorld had any involvement with any of these heists. Its transgressions are much worse than any robberies. I am saying that Chicago has no business doing business with them.
Just saying.
Excellent