A gang of thieves reportedly abseiled down a lift shaft and broke into a vault in London's Hatton Garden jewellery district to steal a giant haul of gems and cash.
Scotland Yard's Flying Squad are investigating the heist, which took place at a safety deposit centre in London's jewellery quarter over the weekend.
The Sun claims it is Britain's biggest heist, with the "professional crooks" stealing gems and cash worth an estimated £200m, although other newspapers suggest the value was lower.
Diamond dealers and gold traders are thought to use the vault to store their stock during long weekends.
One source told The Sun that the thieves had tunnelled their way into the building's lift shaft and then abseiled down the shaft to the basement and smashed their way through a wall into the vault. Police confirmed that "heavy cutting equipment" had been used.
"The raid closely resembles a 1971 Lloyds Bank blag in London's Baker Street – the model for the 2008 Jason Statham movie The Bank Job," says the newspaper.
The Daily Mirror says the gang disabled alarms before cutting through the vault's 18in door and breaking into as many as half of the 600 boxes it reportedly contained. Customers are still waiting for police to confirm which boxes have been taken.
The Mirror says the thieves could have been inside the centre for the entire Easter weekend. An alarm was apparently triggered as early as Friday but security guards carried out a cursory check and found no sign of a disturbance.
The Times claims the gang also stole the building's CCTV hard drive, which was stored nearby, "suggesting some level of insider knowledge".
Mohammed Shah, a precious stones wholesaler, with around £100,000 worth of gems in the vault, told the newspaper: "Everybody wants to know what has been taken but the police are not telling us anything. I am insured but many people who use these boxes are not. Nobody really knows what is kept in these boxes."
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