Detectives hunted on Thursday for an “armed and dangerous” gang who posed as police to steal up to £40 million in one of the country's biggest robberies.
TONBRIDGE: Detectives hunted on Thursday for an “armed and dangerous” gang who posed as police to steal up to £40 million in one of Britain’s biggest robberies.
Airports and ports were put on full alert in case the gang attempted to flee the country. Six raiders snatched the manager of a security depot, took his wife and young son hostage and threatened to kill them unless he helped them get inside the compound, police said.
“These men were armed, dangerous and violently threatening,” said Detective Superintendent Paul Gladstone. “They held the manager in fear of his life and that of his wife and son’s for more than six hours and threatened to kill him and his family before raiding the depot,” he added.
The Bank of England, Britain’s central bank, confirmed that £25 million of its money had been stolen. Media reports said the final tally may be more than £40 million, making it Britain’s largest cash robbery. If confirmed, it would eclipse the theft in 2004 of £26.5 million from a bank in Northern Ireland.
That raid was widely blamed on Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas. Police said no one was injured in the raid on the depot in Tonbridge, Kent, 20 miles southeast of London. The windowless depot, surrounded by a metal fence and cameras, stored banknotes used in shops across London and the southeast. The final amount taken would not be known until forensic experts had finished searching the crime scene. The depot is run by Sweden’s Securitas Cash Management Ltd, the world’s biggest security firm. It said in a statement: “Members of our staff have had inflicted on them the most terrible and traumatic experience.”
Kent police’s Gladstone said raiders in an unmarked car with police-style blue lights in its front grille, pulled over the depot manager as he drove home from work on Tuesday. He was taken to a farm building somewhere in west Kent where a gun was placed to his head. He was told to cooperate or his family would be killed.
At the same time, his wife and son were abducted from their home by raiders dressed as police. Early on Wednesday, the gang spent more than an hour loading a white lorry with cash before escaping.
Gladstone, appealing for witnesses after the meticulously planned raid, said: “Someone out there must have noticed someone acting suspiciously or something odd in the days even weeks before the robbery took place.”
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