The British Council, "Closed extracts: Approximately 800 pages".
It seems unthinkable that MI5 would be behind such a plan unless the gang agreed to deliberately take the fall for them. [52] Police announced that they were searching for four men and a woman.
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Safe-deposit vaults are sometimes considered a tempting target for robbery because, as a rule, only high-value items such as jewellery, bearer bonds, securities, uncut gems and large amounts of cash tend to be kept in them and, once robbers breach the vault, whatever they find is likely to be worth the time, effort and expense of breaking in. After all, it was Benjamin Bugsy Siegel (ironically himself the victim of a contract killer) who coined the famous criminal line that gangsters only kill each other.
Instead of using Rowlandss radio knowledge to concentrate its search the police decided to visit every bank within 10 miles of his home, some 750 addresses in all, and check all of them as quickly as possible.
[10] It was headed by Brian Reader, was carried out over a weekend and involved breaking into a vault containing safety deposit boxes, although in this case the burglars used a heavy-duty drill to enter through a wall.
Newspapers and later publications provided the following estimates: 231,000 in 1973 equates to approximately 2,972,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 2,500 in 1973 equates to approximately 32,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 75,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 1,128,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 30,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 451,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 500,000 in 1973 equates to approximately 6,433,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 660,000 in 1977 equates to approximately 4,362,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 3,000 to 4,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 45,000 to 60,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the.
Language links are at the top of the page across from the title.
Title Role Productions. Police estimated that the gang took almost three months to lease the nearest available ground-floor property (a leather goods store named Le Sac just two doors down from the bank), assemble the equipment, dig the tunnel, breach the vault floor and rob its contents. [11][12] Thomas Stephens, another second-hand car salesman with no criminal record, was used to acquire the tools needed for the break-in, including a thermal lance and a 100-ton jack; one of Reader's friends, Bobby Mills, was employed to be the lookout man.
Brian Reader, a gang member not captured by police in 1971, says the men found sickening images of child sex abuse involving prominent politicians in the safety deposit boxes.
Rowlands picked up a small tape recorder, recorded every time the unknown crooks started talking and then dialled the police a second time. London, 1890. WebBenjamin WOLFE, Thomas Gray STEPHEN, Reginald Samuel TUCKER and Anthony GAVIN: convicted of aggravated burglary arising from the theft of cash and jewellery worth 1,250,000 from Lloyds Bank, 185 Baker Street, Marylebone, London NW1, between 10 and 13 September 1971.
Some of the rumours inspired the story for the 2008 film The Bank Job.
[72], In 2011 The Baker Street Robbery, a documentary on the burglary, was broadcast on The History Channel; the programme included an interview with Robert Rowlands and the recordings he made of the robbery. But with the police knowing from the transmissions on Rowlands radio that the gang were trying to dig their way directly into the vault rather than go in through the front it is staggering that this search was deemed sufficient to dismiss the bank as the possible location of the robbery.
The vault door was protected by a standard alarm that would be triggered by the door either being opened or directly attacked.
Finally, its also been said that the safe deposit box had evidence that a conservative cabinet member was abusing children, which was left behind by robbers for police to find.
"Accused tells of 'shock' over 1.5m bank raid".
"[51], Initially a news blackout was imposed on the radio messages to avoid letting the burglars know their conversations had been overheard by the police, but this was lifted by Monday 13 September.
Even some of the earliest feature films marketed as first-hand film of real events were actually shot in some back lot studio somewhere.
[14], Up to 120 detectives worked on the case,[14] organised into four teams: one examining the scene, one contacting the known safety box owners, one covering the co-ordination from the control centre and one team dealing with all external enquiries. Soon, Anthony Gavin, Thomas Stephens and Reginald Tucker were all under arrest and being questioned by Scotland Yard detectives.
It was a highly-specialised robbery needing considerable technical expertise which makes it unusual that the gang themselves werent high-level experts as much as journeyman crooks making an unusually complex entry into the big leagues. [14] The bank provided the police with the names of 260 box owners; eight others refused to allow their names to be passed on. Could it be there is something so explosive in those files that they might still be embarrassing decades after everyone involved is dead? "naused" is slang for to ruin or mess up. [30] He heard comments over the radio that made him think a local cigarette shop was being burgled. [26] Their intention was to use the 100-ton jack to force a hole in the 3-foot-thick (0.91m) reinforced concrete floor, and railway sleepers were laid on the floor to support it.
If they have such a powerful mechanism to cover up their activities, it begs the question as to why the robbery was even needed.
Not one of them cracked under questioning, none of them cut a deal in return for lighter sentences and, so far, none of them has opted for a book deal or made any public comment about either the crime or the fact that none of the swag has ever been found.
[30] Lord Hailsham owned one of the boxes in the bank; at the time of the robbery he was Lord Chancellor, the most senior member of the judiciary. The tunnel started in leather goods shop Le Sac and ended inside the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank.
Not a single item of stolen property from the Baker Street robbery has ever been recovered. The two were arrested and 32,000 of notes were seized. The amount of evidence was huge, time was short and Londons banking community (not forgetting over 260 less-than-happy customers) was in a state of shock. The robbers were talking to each other on open channels, potentially allowing any of thousands of people in the area to hear their chatter. While The Bank Job certainly took some creative liberties, rumors and falsehoods surrounding the case have run rampant over the years, muddying its true events. X became a minor celebrity in the late 60s by setting up a London branch of the Black Power movement and was briefly feted in the press by such figures as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. "Three are charged with 1,250,000 bank raid".
In the film an underworld figure named Michael X is storing sexual photographs of Margaret taken on her holiday home in Mustique in the Baker Street vault with the intention of using them to blackmail the British establishment into turning a blind eye to his criminal activities. Next: The Expendables Spinoff Theory: Jason Statham Will Take Over The Series. The theory was simple, the practice wasnt. The story involves murder, corruption and a sex scandal with links to the Royal Family a story in which the thieves were the most innocent people involved.
Even today, paedophile scandals are rumbling on at the BBC and Westminister. Bank vaults can often be attacked along similar lines, albeit on a larger scale. Allowing every detail of their plan to be broadcasted over the airwaves seems another mistake uncharacteristic of a professional state intelligence operation.
[75] The advertising for the film played up many of the rumours, both fuelling and reinforcing them:[76], [the gang] looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds.
Gavin and his crew broke into the Lloyds bank by tunneling from a nearby store they rented and used gelignite known as a blasting jelly to open a way up into the bank from the ground. First, it was highly unusual for relatively low-level criminals to tackle something needing such special skills and equipment. To any passing pedestrian it was just another empty store and the noise inside would easily be put down to the interior being remodelled before re-opening under new management.
Such was its expense and complexity it seems unlikely to have been hatched by such small time operators without the help from somebody. The officer he spoke to, given that it was 1a.m.
But it seemed none of the men were ever short of money.
[14], In March 1973, 64 of those whose safety deposit boxes had been broken into sued Lloyds for 500,000. Journalists in the 1970s already knew what kind of subjects were out of bounds. Unlike many other high-profile criminals, such as the men behind the Great Train Robbery, the gang have remained resolutely discrete over the years. At 11:30pm, he phoned the police; the local police officer thought it was a prank call, and told Rowlands that he should record the conversation if anything interesting was overheard.
A safecracker will often ignore a safe door and try forcing either the base, sides, top or back of an ordinary safe because the door is usually the strongest, best-protected part of it.
A D Notice however was (and still is) not legally enforceable in itself, amounting only to the government advising the media to keep something quiet.
Unfortunately for him (and the rest of the gang) Wolfe provided lasting proof of his not being a criminal genius by leasing it under his own name.
[17][f] The property had a basement that, the group calculated, was at the same level as the bank vault.
There have been several rumours connected with the burglary, including one that the government issued a D-Notice to censor the press; that one of the safety deposit boxes contained compromising photographs of Princess Margaret and the actor and criminal John Bindon; and that photographs of a Conservative cabinet minister abusing children were found. Speculation about who was really behind the raid has lead to some sensational theories. [69] A third rumour is that photographs of a Conservative cabinet minister abusing children were discovered by the gang and left behind for the police to find, but no action was taken. We want you to mind for one hour from now until approximately one o'clock and then to go off the air, get some sleep and come on the air with both radios at six o'clock in the morning.
But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick OConnor, the factsor a lack of themdidnt add up. The possibility that them getting caught and going to prison was part of the deal can't be overlooked, but it's a hefty price to pay however much the men were paid.
The value of the goods that were stolen during the heist is still unknown as the police only managed to retrieve a small sum.
How had the gang managed to graduate to such big league criminality with such apparent ease?
[65][68] Campbell describes the story as "cheerful nonsense". Shortly after the robbery in 1971, Michael X was allowed to leave England for his native Trinidad, despite the fact he was due in court on charges of extortion.
WebIn 1970 Anthony Gavin, a 38-year-old photographer from North London, began planning the burglary of the branch of Lloyds Bank at 187 Baker Street, in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster, London. Benjamin WOLFE, Thomas Gray STEPHEN, Reginald Samuel TUCKER and Anthony GAVIN: convicted of aggravated burglary arising from the theft of cash and jewellery worth 1,250,000 from Lloyds Bank, 185 Baker Street, Marylebone, London NW1, between 10 and 13 September 1971. The total on the day of the robbery was much higher than normal, about 2.6m At just after 3 a.m. the driver stopped the train at a red signal light in Ledburn. Despite her immense privileges, Princess Margaret was a tragic figure. Bereft of a sense of purpose, the young Princess would increasingly lose herself in a life of hedonism and become notorious for her drinking, partying and a succession of lovers. [55][k], The two Gangjis were remanded in custody until 16 November, when bail was set at 75,000.
[25] The police later widened their search to include five others.
Two other men were tried for allegedly handling stolen money from the robbery and were acquitted.
Big actually put the job together, whether or not all those involved were actually caught and where all the stolen cash and property finally ended up. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. ", "One last job: the inside story of the Hatton Garden heist", "Princess Margaret Love Affair Reportedly Linked To Bank Robbery", "Hatton Garden Heist: burglar 'found evidence of Tory minister abusing children' in previous robbery", "Self preservation societies: a brief history of heists", "Benjamin Wolfe, Thomas Gray Stephen, Reginald Samuel Tucker and Anthony Gavin: convicted", "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)", "Closed extracts: Approximately 800 pages", "Tuesday, Feb. 21: 'History's Greatest Heists With Pierce Brosnan' Revisits the 1971 Lloyds Bank Robbery", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baker_Street_robbery&oldid=1147800434, September 1971 events in the United Kingdom, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 April 2023, at 07:56. [3][j], After the end of the investigation Scotland Yard considered prosecuting Rowlands under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1967 for listening to unlicensed transmissions, but no charges were laid against him.
[23] Gavin dug until he reached the walls of the Chicken Inn's basement, then dug down and continued under the building, using their basement floor as the roof of the tunnel.
Some biographers now believe Margaret even had an affair with Bindon, something he would occasionally brag about himself.
Fearful of a major national scandal if they are made public, MI5 orders the raid to retrieve them.
Police eventually tracked down the other gang members from their associations with Wolfe.
Empty deposit boxes lay scattered The Bank Job fictionalizes the true story of the Baker Street bank heist from 1971, and the details of the robbery are shrouded in mystery.
"Tuesday, Feb. 21: 'History's Greatest Heists With Pierce Brosnan' Revisits the 1971 Lloyds Bank Robbery". [49][n] The case opened in the High Court in 1977, by which time there were 138 plaintiffs seeking damages of 660,000.
Baker Street is within two miles of Wimpole Street.
kela: (bkz: baker street) edit: ukte.
Anthony Gavin. Gavin and his colleagues rented Le Sac, a leather goods shop two doors from the bank, and tunnelled during weekends. It seems odd the government would go to such lengths to cover up the details of the robbery.
With limited resources and the need to ask the permission of each bank to search it, they failed to stop the gang in time. One small story did appear in The Times in 1973 reporting on the conviction of the three men involved in the raid, but this looks like a curiously scant return for such a sensational crime. [7], Although many of the records relating to the burglary at the bank were released by The National Archives in 2013,[79] approximately 800 pages of information remain closed; they will be available for viewing in January 2071. Instead, they sent their men on a wild goose chase of more than 170 banks across ten miles of north-west London, massively decreasing the odds that they would find the correct location in time. Nothing taken from the robbery - money, jewels or anything else, was ever recovered. If it had been acted on Rowlandss information about the radios range would certainly have narrowed the search area hugely, making it far more likely that the gang would have been caught red-handed.
Another time Bindon performed his famous party trick involving hanging 5 half pint glasses from his penis, much to Margaret's delight.
But which bank and where? Anthony Gavin.
WebThe heist-thriller, directed by Roger Donaldson (Al Pacino's The Recruit), explores the real-life Lloyds bank robbery of 1971 which took place on Baker Street in London. They found the vault secure; they were unable to open the vault to check as it was time locked. The way the police seemed to be reluctant to catch the gang? [7] A Dictionary of Law by the Oxford University Press defines robbery as "The offence of using force against any person, or putting them in fear of being subjected to force, in order to commit a theft";[50] burglary is defined as "The offence, under the Theft Act 1968, of entering a building with the intention of committing one of three specified crimes in it [including] theft. WebFrom late December 2015 through early February 2016, Anthony Hamilton robbed 36 gas station convenience stores at gunpoint, according to the indictments against him.
[2] He decided to use a nearby premises and tunnel up into the floor of the bank; the plan was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", an 1891 short story by Arthur Conan Doyle.
On the morning of Saturday 11th September 1971, the Metropolitan Police knew two solid facts about the bank robbery currently in progress somewhere in London.
Related: Every Jason Statham Franchise, Ranked Worst To Best. The gang escaped from the crime scene taking over 3,000,000 of assorted swag that would be worth around 36,000,000 at current values.
Rowlands states he was told a so-called D Notice was issued to suppress the story which, again, is at best extremely unlikely.
Revelations continue that many high-profile establishment figures were routinely protected, a conspiracy of silence preventing them from been exposed. Eventually persuaded, they set out on a frantic search of hundreds of London's banks in an attempt to thwart the raid. Bank practice of the time was for staff to leave customers in private while visiting the vault. With the gang just a few feet away behind the 15-inch thick door of the vault, the bank was dismissed as the location of the robbery because there were no signs of a break-in. In recent years, the tabloid Daily Mirror has revealed that they and other major newspapers of the time were approached by senior government officials and asked to drop the story.
[30] Eight hundred pieces of evidence were logged and forensically examined. In Wimpole Street, London, amateur CB radio hobbyist Robert Rowlands is tuning his set at around 1a.m., trying to tune in popular European station Radio Luxembourg. All this had to be done without tripping any of the vaults security devices or arousing any public attention while digging the tunnel and robbing the vault.
185 Baker Street, Marylebone, London NW1,
WebStreet 222, South Africa; My Cart item .
The heist was then widely reported for a while, the BBC and most of the national press reported on the crime. [39], Police contacted bank staff and local security firms to open up their branches as they began to check 750 banks in an 8-mile (13km) radius. WebLondon's Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on11th September 1971.
"Self preservation societies: a brief history of heists". [31] At around midnight he recorded dialogue between the gang inside the shop and the nearby lookout about their need to take a break: First voice: Right, well listen carefully.
He drew a map of the room, plotting where the cabinets were and the position of the furniture. [4][57][m] Shortly afterwards the bank's insurers offered a 30,000 reward for information that would lead to more arrests. 221B Baker St. A fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help.
The robbery was known about for almost two days before news of it was broken on the morning of Monday 13th September.
It was a professional and carefully planned operation, but one that raised some nagging questions that have never been satisfactorily answered.
How to Cut Expanded Metal.
Somebody must have arranged its onward sale and disposal of the proceeds, but nobody was ever convicted for having done so.
Wolfe was quickly apprehended and the other gang members, all known associates of Wolfe, soon followed. Rowlands thought it was a good idea, so used a small cassette recorder to make a record of the conversations. Second, Michael X was a professional criminal, a freelance felon whose main employment was as a slum landlord, pimp and sometime enforcer. In The Bank Job, exactly such photographs are in the possession of an underworld figure named Michael X.
Second, there are neither records logging any request for a D Notice nor for one having been issued and there certainly would be records if it had been done. or. What was then known as a D Notice (Defence Notice) could be issued by a government department concerned with preserving national security by advising the press to avoid discussing certain matters such as intelligence operations or the current activities of Special Forces troops.
Allegations that there is a systematic cover-up of a child-sex ring at that highest level of British politics persists even today.
Was the target something so sensitive it could be used to blackmail one of the powerful clients? See Photos. [54] After several weeks of surveillance and investigation police had identified Wolfe, Gavin, Stephens and Tucker as the key individuals to arrest, but they also wanted to speak to three of four other people who they thought were involved. It was essentially a safecrackers logic applied to an entire bank vault (bank vaults are essentially large safes, after all).
WebThe Ontario Police Department confirmed to FOX 11 that a robbery was reported at the 7-Eleven located at 636 N. Vine Ave. Around midnight Monday morning, an armed man
[17] The gang then used the thermic lance in an attempt to cut through the floor;[27] when this failed they drilled holes in the underside of the vault floor and packed them with gelignite. The gang had posted a lookout on a nearby roof, who was in contact via walkie-talkie, and their broadcasts were accidentally overheard by Robert Rowlands, an amateur radio enthusiast.
Elaborate bank robberies seem superfluous in the circumstances.
The Queen's younger sister would never become monarch herself and failed to carve any kind of meaningful role for herself in the Royal hierarchy. Anthony Gavin.
All these men were known to the police, but none was thought to have the skills for something as complex and difficult as this.
The gang only dug during weekends, minimizing the risk of anyone noticing unusual noise or visitors going to and from their hideout and explaining the time taken to dig the tunnel. Given the technical difficulties and obvious physical risks its not hard to see why. In 1971 British banks were usually closed from Friday afternoons until Monday mornings, giving them the maximum time between burgling the vault and the crime being discovered when the bank re-opened. The owners of every box forced open had to be identified, informed and asked exactly what they had deposited which, for any depositor with anything either highly embarrassing or outright illegal in their box, could have caused serious problems. The Bank Job alludes to the method used by the original burglars, but the movie version is almost entirely fictionalized.