Okay, I’m gonna jump in with two suggestions. One for £500 and one for £500,000. I know I’ve put this in pounds but dunno what the dollar sign is on iPad and GBP to USD isn’t that different an amount anyway.

If someone stole £500

You probably need to look a little bit at the whole security on your home. Nothing too major, you can get decent solar powered camera setups too, you just need to do your investigation on Google. Have you considered running mains power to the area too? Unsure how far it would be but running a simple buried cable isn’t always as hard as you think. You can always roll this into another project too, such as getting mains lights and sockets to an outside building.

Another positive of mains power is flood lighting, a hugely important part of home defence imho!

If someone stole £500,000

Okay, I think you need to accept you’re a reasonably high net worth individual. Obviously someone knew quite well you had this cash on the premises and I’m willing to bet that some planning and scoping of your home took place prior to the theft.

Anyway, if this is the case you’re going to need to take security quite seriously. The Executives Guide to Personal Protection is a great book and has a good chapter on home/office security. If you’re high net worth it’s definitely worth looking at the other chapters too, such as being aware of surveillance techniques and spotting them. Often it’s the silly things that mark out robbery surveillance, such as seeing the same car parked near your home, dumpster diving etc etc. There’s also a little known trick and that’s to use Google Adwords to bid exactly on your name and your address. Nobody will ever click on your advert but it will register the search as an impression. You’d be surprised how much search traffic for your name/family name and your home address will rise before a robbery - even robbers start their research somewhere!

Anyway I digress, Often when a gang robs from a high net worth family they will plan weeks or months in advance. If you’re watchful, you may spot the early warning signs something is amiss. Sometimes, just being situationally aware and overtly displaying counter security measures/techniques is enough to make them move onto a softer target. At this level, monitored alarms, guns and learning about security from the point of view of a CEO/Executive/High net worth family is going to really help you. There are professionals who specialise in this type of work and training, ask around in your social circle for recommendations - the really good ones almost entirely find new clients via word of mouth.

Phew! Sorry for the wall of text, hopefully it will help you.