UPDATE: Sony warehouse fire suspected to be the work of professional thieves; warehouse officials deny report
The fire that destroyed North London’s Sony/PIAS distribution center—and with it the inventories of more than 150 independent record labels—may not have been just another random casualty of last month’s riots as initially suspected. According to The Telegraph, “sources in the security industry” now say that the warehouse was likely targeted by a gang of professional thieves, who took advantage of the distraction caused by the riots to spend nearly two hours dismantling the center’s protective fence, then loaded up stolen goods into a fleet of vans before they “ invited other gangs in to continue the looting in an attempt to cover their tracks.” The site’s overwhelmed security guards were unable to stop them or call in police forces for help—as they were obviously busy elsewhere—and soon enough the building went up in flames.
