On the Monday after Easter in 2024, staff opened the vault at a GardaWorld facility in Sylmar, in the northern part of Los Angeles. Money that businesses had entrusted to the facility was missing. The first public estimate put the loss at as much as $30 million. An exact total was harder to come by. The FBI confirmed a multimillion-dollar theft without putting a number on it.
The warehouse on Roxford Street had none of the features people associate with a bank robbery. Customers had not been lined up at a counter. The report reached police the morning after the burglary. For anyone outside the investigation trying to understand how the money had left the building, the first evidence they could see was a patch of plywood.
A view from above
On Wednesday, KABC sent a helicopter over the building. Its camera picked out an opening in a side wall that had been boarded up. Debris lay alongside it. It was an unusually clear picture of damage and a poor guide to what the people who caused it had done next. From outside, nobody could see a route through the rooms or establish whether anyone had carried money through that opening.
Officials briefed on the investigation described a different possible point of entry, through the roof. Reaching the building was one part of the burglary. Reaching the stored cash was another. The publicly available accounts did not describe how the intruders opened the vault or how they got the money out.
Timeline of the heist
- March 31, 2024. The burglary takes place on Easter Sunday at the GardaWorld cash facility in Sylmar.
- April 1. Staff discover the loss when they open the vault. The theft is reported that morning.
- April 3–4. The loss becomes public. Local television photographs the wall damage, and the LAPD confirms the joint investigation with the FBI.
- April 19. The Los Angeles Times reports that police responded to three separate alarm calls on Easter without detecting the burglars.
What an alarm could tell the police
The early reports gave the impression that no alarm had sounded. Later reporting established that police had gone to the property. Their presence helps explain why there were two quite different timelines to reconstruct. One followed the people who attended the alarm calls. The other followed the people who got to the cash. A record that puts a patrol car at the building does not put the burglars at a particular door at that same moment.
What the investigation established
An employee interviewed by KABC wondered aloud whether anyone inside the company had helped. The employee also wondered how many people had taken part. Both were questions. In a separate interview with USC Annenberg Media, a specialist in corporate-crime investigations explained why investigators would examine who knew the site and its physical security. She had no public finding of employee involvement to announce.
What the federal and local authorities confirmed was narrower. Someone had taken millions of dollars from the facility. They were investigating who had done it. In the reporting that followed in April, no one was publicly identified as a perpetrator. The sources reviewed here do not establish a later arrest or a recovery of the cash.
FAQ
Was the loss exactly $30 million?
That figure was the top of the publicly reported estimate. ABC News reported that the exact sum had not been officially confirmed.
Did the thieves enter through the roof or the wall?
Officials described the roof as a likely entry point. The recorded wall damage alone does not establish how the cash left the warehouse.
Did an employee take part?
The sources document questions about inside knowledge. They identify no employee as responsible.
Research Sources
The following resources were consulted to verify and update this article.
- Los Angeles Times, the initial police account. Records the upper estimate of the missing cash.
- ABC News, reconstruction of the Sylmar burglary. Distinguishes the suspected roof entry from the unconfirmed role of the wall opening.
- KABC Los Angeles, aerial footage and employee interview. Documents what could be seen outside the facility and what an employee actually said.
- Los Angeles Times, follow-up on the alarm calls. Reports three police responses on Easter Sunday.
- USC Annenberg Media, the federal and local inquiry. Reports the FBI’s confirmation and a corporate-crime specialist’s interpretation.
- The Guardian, the investigation in April 2024. Describes the unresolved search for the people responsible that April.
🔎 If this story stayed with you, the author suggests these real cases next:
- The true crime archive where unsolved files, retrials, and forensic breakthroughs connect
- Cases where the camera saw something — and still failed to close the story
- The grandparent scam and the couriers who collected the cash
- The cases that came roaring back when new evidence changed everything
Explore more True Crime stories here:
