By Tim Boreham and Stewart Tendler -
It took thieves 2 1/2 hours to haul the sackloads of banknotes from the vault to a semi-trailer parked behind the Northern Bank's Belfast headquarters.
In one of the biggest bank robberies ever, more than $50million was stolen in a meticulously planned operation that police believe was the work of sophisticated gangsters linked to either Republican or Loyalist paramilitaries.
The loss of the cash was another blow for the luckless National Australia Bank, owner of Northern Bank, which was not insured against such a brazen crime. NAB lost $360 million in a rogue trading scandal in January.
The drama began at 10pm on Sunday when the families of two executives at Northern Bank were taken hostage at gunpoint by masked men at their homes on the outskirts of Belfast.
On Monday morning, as their families remained captives in their homes, the executives were ordered to drive to work and act normally. They were told to send the other staff home early to do some Christmas shopping.
At the close of business on Monday, as carol singers entertained the crowds wrapped up against the sub-zero temperatures outside, the gang joined the managers and began clearing the vaults, which were full of consignments on their way to the bank's 95 branches.
Once the cash was loaded, the executives were told to lock up and set the alarms as normal. They were then taken away and dumped at a remote spot. Their families were freed about 10pm. No one was injured, although one of the executives is thought to have been treated for hypothermia. The hostage families are said to have been very shaken by their ordeal.
The robbers appear to have been thinking of how to get rid of the cash before deciding which banknotes to steal.
The vault contained pound stg. 30million, but pound stg. 10million of this consisted of notes issued by Northern Bank itself, as one of four banks in Northern Ireland permitted to print sterling currency.
These notes, destined for cashpoints, were left behind because their serial numbers and distinctive designs made them easy to trace.
The money stolen is said to consist of a variety of used notes, including some Bank of England sterling, and euros.
Investigators say the cash is likely to be smuggled abroad, fed into a tax haven and then brought back to Britain. Dodgy accountants and fixers offer "brass plate" companies that exist only on paper and are used to open accounts and deposit cash. The accounts can be operated through a network of companies so cash can be shuttled around the world electronically.
NAB yesterday confirmed the stolen amount as pound stg. 20 million, saying: "The theft is covered by self-insurance, and as such NAB ... will bear the impact of any losses arising from the theft."
The bank said the theft would not have any "material impact" on the sale of Northern Bank to Denmark's Danske Bank, expected to be completed by the end of March.
"We are relieved there was no physical injury to any of our staff," NAB chairman Graham Kraehe said.
The scale of the robbery stunned police chiefs heading an offensive against organised crime in Northern Ireland, which has developed into a business worth pound stg. 1billion a year.
Assistant chief constable Sam Kinkaid, leading the hunt for the bank raiders, said: "This was not a lucky crime, this was a well-organised crime."
Bill Lowry, a recent former head of the RUC Special Branch, said: "It was a well-organised, well-executed operation carried out with military precision with more than 20 people probably involved. The best organised crime gangs in Ireland are the paramilitaries. And the Provisional IRA have the capacity more than any other of carrying out this type of crime and dealing with pound stg. 20million or pound stg. 30million."
Dissident republicans have been blamed for a spate of kidnap robberies in Strabane, and republicans were also blamed for a pound stg. 1.2million heist at a tobacco warehouse in south Belfast this year.
Loyalist paramilitaries have also been involved in what are called tiger kidnappings -- hostage robberies in which a key employee is forced to perform the orders of kidnappers while his family is held prisoner by the gang.
Mr Kinkaid was keeping an open mind about the identity of the Belfast robbers.
"We have had a number of organised crime gangs working here who have targeted banks and bank officials, with no paramilitary connections, but equally we have had a number of paramilitary groups who have specialised in the types of crime that happened at the Northern Bank," he said. "It could be paramilitary related. At this stage we don't know."
The robbers clearly had knowledge of how to breach banking security.
Banks try to deter kidnappings by using a "dual key" system, ensuring no employee can open a strongroom alone.
One staff member is given part of the code to the vault and another is told the rest. If either is sick, a colleague is entrusted with details and the combination is changed when the invalid returns.
To increase security measures further, banks use time locks so the vault cannot be opened outside normal working hours.
Battling against the clock, the Belfast gang forced the Northern Bank executives to let them into the strongroom between 6pm and 8.30pm at the end of the working day.
John O'Connor, a former Scotland Yard Flying Squad commander, said the gang needed internal help.
"This gang have got to be very patient, very ruthless. The amount of money that has to be laundered, you have to have some kind of international contacts, which suggests terrorism," he said.
Source: The Australian
