Page 24 - Bloomberg Businessweek July 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek
See it in: Midnight Run (1988), when the bounty hunter THE HEIST ISSUE
played by Robert De Niro enters a fugitive’s apartment

Lock picks and bump keys Lock picking is about patience
and finesse, using the right-
SouthOrd Pagoda 12-pick set, $39; shaped tool to push internal
Kwikset bump keys, $4.25 pins out of the way one by one.
Picks have been around as
long as locks themselves, and
today’s burglars can draw on a
vast range of them, from Bogotá
rakes to short hooks. They’re
also surprisingly easy to make.
In a pinch, a bra underwire can
be refashioned into a tensioning
tool; ditto a street-cleaning
truck’s bristles or a wiper-blade
wire. A bump key offers another
quick approach: Insert one into a
lock, “bump” it with your fist, a
shoe heel, or a rubber hammer,
and it will jostle the internal pins
out of the way. A well-timed turn
of the knob, and you’re in.

51

Angle grinder

Makita 9557NB,
starting at $59

The cutting wheel, or angle
grinder, is one of the most
versatile tools available, whether
you’re polishing metal in an
auto-body shop or peeling open
a locked safe. DeWalt, Makita,
and Milwaukee all make models
that combine power, portability,
and long battery life. The abrasive
metal discs of their cutting wheels
can make short work of a safe
deposit box’s hinges, a shopfront’s
security doors, or a high-security
safe. “It just doesn’t take long
to get through,” says Ben Black,
a burglary detective with the
Los Angeles Police Department.

July 2, 2018 See it in: Street Thief (2006), as Malik Bader robs a
cinema’s cash-deposit safe in a hail of sparks