George Clooney makes the traditional heist look pretty doable. With the right people, the right technology and someone to take care of the cameras, the Ocean's Eleven star has proven you can slip in and out of a vault with the swag in about the time it takes to watch a movie. And all without ruffling your hair.
After visiting the gold vaults hidden deep beneath Jumeirah Lakes Towers in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), though, it is clear that any aspiring Danny Ocean ought to give this part of the world a wide berth.
Just thinking about everything you would have to do to even begin planning a robbery in the DMCC's labyrinthian caves of gold bars, silver ingots and bags of precious jewels, is enough to make even the most hardened thief go straight
The vault, completed in 2007 and operated by Brink's, is five storeys below ground and one storey below sea level, meaning you would need something akin to an offshore oilrig to drill into it.
Then there are the motion detectors, the cameras, the control rooms, the secret combinations and the fact that the vault is housed on a heavily guarded 80-hectare site operated in its entirety by the DMCC.
Nobody with ill intent is getting anywhere near it.
Even with a phalanx of burly guards and a team of executives from Brink's and the DMCC, just getting down to the big strongroom on an official visit is a complex task.
After descending an unknown number of floors in a secure elevator we passed through the first of many heavily guarded locked doors into a VIP area.
Two gold pillars - painted with real gold leaf - hold up a low ceiling studded with recessed mood lighting. The room, with a highly polished marble floor, is otherwise empty, save for a long counter used for displaying precious stones and bars of gold of the super wealthy VIP customers.
"Its got gold leaf on the pillars," said Gautam Sashittal, the chief operating officer of DMCC, with pride.
"This room is used for very, ultra high net worth individuals, shall we say, or clients who want to view diamonds and other precious things in a secure environment. You come straight through the basement into secure parking, straight into here."
We go through another series of locked doors, that have more in common with metal roll-down shop shutters than the sort of sophisticated security you see depicted on the silver screen.
On the other side we are in what seems to be a loading bay. Before us there is a very small old fashioned strongbox safe with a circular combination lock. Another set of automatic metal doors is raised and we pass through into yet another loading bay. This one, though, is where armoured trucks drop off and collect their precious cargo. Every move we make is monitored by security cameras, vibration and temperature sensors.
We pass through a third and a fourth metal gate. Each one is double controlled, which means no gate can be opened until the previous one is locked and verified by guards in the remotely located control room.
Then we take another lift that takes us even deeper underground to where all the gold and precious stones are stored.
"Now we are at the fifth level below ground and we are actually below sea level," said Mr Constain.
"As you know once you are below sea level it is very difficult to drill. The pressure difference affects the process. Brink's designed this vault. It is one of the top five most secure vaults in the world and is certainly the most complex and most secure facility in the Middle East I would say," he added.
more.. http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/economics/dubais-safe-haven-for-gold-defies-oceans-eleven-wannabes#full
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