WILSON, N.C. (AP) – Details emerging from the theft of nearly $5 million in gold bars on an interstate highway indicate the heist was carefully planned and raise questions about who was involved other than the three armed robbers.
The robbers pulled up almost immediately after the drivers made an unscheduled stop on a dark stretch of highway in North Carolina, according to a warrant. When the crew got out of the truck, they left their firearms behind in violation of their employer’s security rules, the sheriff said. And while the workers told authorities they had to pull over because strong gasoline fumes were making at least one of them sick, a mechanic found no problems with the truck.
The circumstances led one detective to write that the heist on Sunday “could be an inside job,” though the sheriff declined to commit to that theory during a news conference Wednesday. One thing was clear, though: The heist was targeted and planned, down to the orange traffic cones the robbers put out while they unloaded 275 pounds of gold worth $4.8 million.
Asked to put the case into context, Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard, who’s a native of the area, remarked: “It’s different.”
“We want to make sure that all the citizens, as well as those who live outside the county, feel safe when they travel that stretch of highway.”