Forwarded From: bluesky@rcia.com
Posted at 01:20 p.m. PDT; Tuesday, August 4, 1998
Key Bank customers' boxes are looted
by Matthew Ebnet and Michael Ko
Seattle Times staff reporters
Sometime between Friday evening and yesterday morning, thieves bored a
hole through the concrete roof of the International District branch of Key
Bank, lowered themselves into a vault by rope and plundered the
safety-deposit boxes.
After disabling the alarm, the thieves stole from as many as 200 of the
bank's 600 boxes, said Chris Arnold, a corporate spokesman for the bank in
Denver.
"The burglars were extremely sophisticated," Arnold said. "Things like
this do not happen very often. Indications suggest that the alarm system
worked . . . (but) one of the central parts of our investigation is to
figure out how they might have disabled it."
Bankers this morning hadn't determined how much money and other valuables
were stolen because they don't know what was stored in the boxes.
Confidentiality rules prohibit the bank from keeping any kind of
inventory. Some customers keep jewelry, gold and silver. Others keep
stamp collections and their wills.
"Nobody knows but the customer. That's the point with safety-deposit
boxes," Arnold said.
Bank workers were calling customers at home today, trying to figure out
what they stored at the branch and how to reimburse them for the loss.
They hope to reach all customers by day's end tomorrow.
The four-story bank at the corner of Seventh Avenue South and South
Dearborn Street is surrounded by Asian-food warehouses.
Signs were posted today at both the front and back entrances, advising
customers in four Asian languages and in English that, "Due to robbery
investigation, branch will be closed until further notice."
The FBI is investigating the crime but did not return telephone calls
today.
Arnold said never before has there been such a masterful break-in at a Key
Bank.
-o-
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Received on Wed Aug 5 12:24:43 1998