The town of Murwillumbah was a sleepy town in Australia where not much happened — until 1978, when a major crime was committed that put the tiny village on the map. Sometime on Wednesday night, November 23, 1978, the locks on the back door of the Bank of South Wales (now The Westpac Bank) were picked. There was no alarm. Using an electromagnetic diamond-tipped drill that clamped on to the safe, the thieves were able to drill holes using a wire they fed through a medical cystoscope into the lock mechanism, manipulating the tumblers to open. A fraction of a millimeter either way and they wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. The culprits left no clues, no mess, no trace. It was a while before anyone figured it out, because they had jammed the safe, removing the two combination lock dials and the safe handles before slamming the door shut. That left them ample time for a clean getaway. Ironically, the police station was a mere 300 feet away — within sight of the bank — and it was staffed all night. No one heard anything or saw anything. At 7:30 a.m. the next morning, a security guard noticed the back door of the bank was open. Local locksmiths and four safe experts flown in from Brisbane worked on the safe door for more than five hours before admitting defeat. Finally, workmen blasted their way in via the external wall of the bank and concrete wall of the vault, using jackhammers, chisels, sledgehammers, and an acetylene torch. It was 4:30 p.m. before the hole was big enough for Chief Inspector Frank Charleton to put his head in, look around, and utter the words, “They got the lot.” The haul was $1.7 million, which would be about $10 million today. The money was untraceable, and apparently so were the robbers. The police say the case remains open and they are still investigating.
