$3 Million Vanishes From Armored Truck; Police Suspect an Inside Job

About $3 million in cash and checks was reported missing from an armored truck in downtown Los Angeles in a theft that police said Wednesday appeared to be an inside job.

The money vanished Tuesday between 7 p.m., when it was loaded onto the truck at the gated headquarters of Armored Transport of California Inc., and about 9 p.m., when the vehicle arrived at a downtown Security Pacific Bank branch.

The truck, loaded with the money, had sat in Armored Transport’s parking lot for about an hour before it left for the bank, according to witnesses. Police said the driver told them that he made no stops before reaching the bank and returned immediately to Armored Transport after discovering the money was missing.

Detective Sgt. Richard Kalk said Wednesday it was not immediately clear when the money was taken from the truck.

On one hand, Kalk said, “it would appear it was missing before they left (Armored Transport).” Yet, “according to witnesses,” he added, “it was in the truck when they left the facility, it wasn’t there when they got (to the bank) and there were no stops in between.”

Kalk was clearer on another point--the likelihood that someone associated with the security firm, one of the state’s largest, was responsible for the theft.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “We’re strongly looking at it as an internal theft.”

A spokeswoman for Armored Transport, located on West Pico Boulevard, said the firm’s administrators will have no comment on the burglary, and she referred calls to police. Later, an employee in the office of Armored Transport’s chairman, Robert G. Irvin, hung up on a reporter when asked for updated general information about the firm.

Detectives on Wednesday interviewed several Armored Transport employees, including the driver and his passenger guard, whose names were not disclosed. Asked if the two men, who were not detained after their interviews, were suspects, Kalk replied, “I don’t want to say, and the investigation is continuing.”

The missing money, about 30 bags of cash and checks, had been loaded in a 3-by-4-foot bin that police said looks like a laundry cart. A second similar canvas cart filled with money and checks was also loaded in the truck and was still there, with no money missing, when the driver arrived at the downtown bank.

After Armored Transport’s security unit was notified of the missing bin about 9 p.m., employees began checking the firm’s building to see if the $3 million had been misplaced, police said. Security officers also searched the route traveled by the truck before company officials notified police about 10:30 p.m., according to authorities.

Police found the missing cart late Tuesday night on Fremont Avenue, between Diamond and Temple streets, a couple blocks from the bank at 3rd and Flower streets.

Near where the cart was found on Fremont, a truck was reported stolen Tuesday night by its owner, a police officer. Authorities later arrested a 40-year-old man for allegedly stealing the truck, but it was initially unclear, Kalk said, whether the man had any involvement in the armored truck case.

Armored Transport, with offices in eight California cities, employed about 400 drivers and was one of the three largest armored transport firms in the state when its drivers took part in a monthlong strike in late 1985. At that time, the company’s Los Angeles drivers agreed to a settlement calling for an 8% pay cut in which veterans were to be paid $11.50 an hour.

In 1983, $7 million was taken from Armored Transport’s San Francisco headquarters when a former employee tricked guards into opening an office gate. In New York City five years ago, a reported $11 million was stolen from the offices of Sentry Armored Courier Corp. by thieves who cut a hole in the roof and handcuffed a guard.