A group of burglars made off with a safe containing nearly $5 million in cash and jewels from a Los Angeles home two weeks ago. Police know that there must have been at least two people involved in the heist and probably more, as the safe weighed in at 500 lbs.

If caught, the culprits would face first degree burglary charges and felony grand theft charges.

The heist was brazen to say the least. The culprits scaled a security wall, smashed in a glass door and used a rug to slide the safe from its upstairs location to a getaway vehicle.

Given the extreme weight of the safe, it seems as though the burglars must have had some sort of inside knowledge of what they were looking for in order to have a vehicle capable of carting off the safe as well as having enough people to actually lift or carry the safe into the vehicle.

If caught, all the perpetrators would face significant jail time. Because they broke into a home, that is automatically 1st degree burglary, which is a strike in California. The punishment for 1st degree burglary is up to 6 years in state prison. Couple that with felony grand theft, which carries a maximum 3 year sentence, plus an addition 4 years because the value of the property stolen exceeded $3 million, and the perpetrators could face up to 13 years in prison if caught and convicted.

What do you think? Was this an inside job and does the potential punishment fit the crime?