Breaking into a Safe

Safe opening demonstration

I opened my first safe in 1977. It was a Chubb Commerce safe that had been attacked by very amateurish safe crackers. They had smashed the dial off and then after realizing this achieved nothing decided to "roll" the safe out into the car park and take it away. Well fortunately for the owners it weighed over 400kgs and thus was left behind. I wonder if the crooks have sore backs.

Here is a photo of a substandard safe that has been prized open using a clawbar.

Anyway I wanted to show how easy it is to open a Home safe as many of these safes are purchased & used for the storage of cash, jewelery and valuables, which they are not designed for. These safes are to be used for fire protection only as they offer very little resistance from attacks by screwdrivers, pinch bars or as I have used a $1.25 can opener and a kitchen Knife.

As you will see these so called "safes" which are available from hardware stores, discount stores & even service stations offer almost no resistance to physical attacks.
The outer skin is only 1.1mm mild sheet steel and the inner "fire installation" is Diatomaceous Earth, which is like plaster of Paris that has been aerated. This makes it very good for protecting the contents from heat however it is very soft. The demonstration is to show you how easy these types of safes are to open. If you need to secure valuables form criminal attacks it is critical to seek appropriate expert advice and reject advice from novices.

Note this demonstration is generic only and by no means do I suggest 100% are like the one shown however I have found about 95% are.

Click here to see reconstructed footage that took less than 10 minutes (approx 1.16Mb download)