Burglars drilled through the wrong wall and tunnelled into a deserted betting shop during a £300,000 raid on an upmarket jewellers, a court heard.
The thieves had hatched a “sophisticated” plot to steal gems from George Attenborough & Son in Fleet Street, sneaking into the building next door during a weekend last March.
They covered their tracks by painting over CCTV cameras and stealing security tapes at the jewellers, but left behind footage from the betting shop.
Prosecutor Philip Stott showed jurors footage of a man crawling through a hole in the wall at William Hill.
“Out of the darkness a figure emerges,” he said. “He crawls out and moves a bin out of the way, looks round the corner where the door is and then he turns around. He then climbs back into the hole.”
Southwark crown court heard that nothing was stolen at the bookmakers.
“They appear to have spent a considerable period of time drilling into the wrong wall — despite all the reconnaissance and all the planning,” said Mr Stott. “Having made the hole, they climbed through, have seen what had happened and gone back in. They went back up the stairs and drilled into the other wall.”
Nicolae Sisca, 46, was identified as the man caught on camera climbing out of the hole in distinctive red shoes. He has pleaded guilty to involvement in the raid. Florin-Cristin Neagu, 46, and Sorin Munteanu, 44, are now on trial accused of being the other two men involved.
Mr Stott said the gang had scoped the building two weeks earlier as they plotted a “sophisticated and daring burglary”, in which £300,000 of jewellery was taken. Neagu is said to have been the lookout, sitting for 10 hours outside the building over March 23 and 24.
The thieves are said to have let themselves into the adjacent building by reaching through the letterbox, before covering cameras and returning later.
The court heard that an alarm was triggered in the jewellers on Sunday, March 24, but the manager did not see the alerts on his phone and the raid was only discovered early on Monday by a delivery driver at the bookies.
Neagu and Munteanu, who were extradited from Romania, deny conspiracy to burgle and burglary. The trial continues.
