Cops crack open vault, find 243 pounds o' pot

For days, Philadelphia police investigators tried desperately to pry open a two-ton, seven-foot-tall safe they found in an Olney rowhouse littered with guns.
Earlier today — with help from the Fire Department, a laser and the Jaws of Life — police finally opened the vault and gazed at the hidden treasure: 243 pounds of marijuana, worth about $1.4 million, according to Narcotics Capt. Debra Frazier.
Now that the riddle of “What’s in the vault?” has been solved, investigators are trying to determine which local drug supplier owned the hefty safe, Frazier said.
A pair of patrol cops from the 35th District, headquartered at Broad and Champlost, discovered the vault about 2 a.m. Friday, when they responded to a 9-1-1 call about a burglary in Olney.
No one was inside the house when the cops arrived, but they immediately spotted the vault and a stash of 11 weapons, including a World War II-era assault rifle, Frazier said.
Investigators haven’t made any arrests yet in the case and declined to provide the address of the property where the vault was discovered.
Frazier said that police transported the vault to a police garage, where two locksmiths tried in vain to open it, the captain noted.
Fire Department officials finally solved the puzzle using a laser and the Jaws of Life, she said.

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About The PhillyConfidential team

Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.

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Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.

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Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.

Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.

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