Thief walks off with £1.5m

A thief, smartly dressed, bespectacled, and wearing a black homburg, was caught on security cameras - but he aroused no suspicions at the safe deposit in Hatton Garden at 9am on a Saturday.

It was the Jewish Sabbath, there were few people around and the man, who called himself Philip Goldberg, had been renting his own strong box there for seven months.

He appeared typical of the diamond dealers and jewellers who use the facility, coming and going often, and staff soon got to recognise him.

On 28 June, however, Goldberg - known by some as Ruben Luis and by others as Luis Ruben - made his last withdrawal.

Carrying a black holdall he walked into the building at 9am. By noon he had gone, having rifled through a series of safe deposit boxes taking large amounts of cash and jewellery worth at least £1.5 million.

Goldberg is described as white, 50-55 years old, about 6ft 4in tall, and stocky. He wore a dark suit, white shirt and red tie - and the homburg - and is believed to have fled the country within hours of the theft, which was only discovered two days later.

He appears to have superglued the fronts back onto the strong boxes he had broken into so they looked as if they hadn't been disturbed.

Former manager Bernard Linsdell, 63, who now works part-time at the depository, said: "It takes a master key and the customer's own key to open the vault but I don't know how he got the keys."