The Untouchable Heist: How $20 Million Vanished Without a Trace

Year: 2002. Place: Tel Aviv. Motive: A lust for money.

"The prestige of the police depends on this case," declared Asaf Hefetz, the then Police Commissioner and head of the central unit. "Such a break-in cannot be ignored - not only because of the public damage but also due to the police's reputation. The officers will do their utmost."

Despite the typical bravado, the break-in at the Discount Bank safe in Tel Aviv remains one of Israel's most frustrating and embarrassing mysteries. Hundreds of witnesses were questioned. Hundreds of inquiries were made. The entire criminal intelligence network was activated. Eleven years have passed, and still, the Israeli police are no closer to solving the mystery than they were that Sunday morning when bank employees arrived to find $20 million had been emptied from the safes of hundreds of people.
For a whole day - from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, July 19th and 20th, 2002 - the thieves stayed inside the bank branch without anyone suspecting they were emptying the vaults.

It appears they entered through a side alley adjacent to the bank branch, lifted the steel plates of the air conditioning room, and slipped into a large underground space filled with air conditioning ducts. From there, they drilled a hole in the vault wall using a special drill with diamond-tipped heads. Through the opening, they wriggled into the vault room, broke open 425 safes, took the contents, and conducted a meticulous sorting. They only took expensive jewelry and large sums of money. They had plenty of time to finish their work at leisure, and before they left, they managed to clean the room with a vacuum cleaner. The bank's two security guards heard nothing.

The victims of the robbery, many of whom were hard-working individuals, were left in shock. It would take years before the bank compensated them for the damage. Meanwhile, the thieves disappeared as if swallowed by the earth. "One of the most organized and efficient robberies ever carried out in the country," states journalist Buki Naeh, who has covered many police investigations. "Typically, gangs are caught when they try their luck at another robbery or due to an insider tip-off. In this case, it's likely a one-time operation by a very small group who knew exactly what they were doing, calculated the police's investigation directions in advance, and ensured they left no trace behind. Real professionals."