Robbery money laundered
Late December 2005 the Northern Bank in Belfast (Ireland) was robbed. Modus Operandi: Tiger Kidnap (see earlier posts). The criminals, some dressed as police officers, entered houses of bank employees and held their families at gunpoint, demanding that the employees assist them in the crime. The bank employees worked in cash centers of the bank and handed bags of cash to the gang. The two bank officials did as they were told. They reported to work as if nothing were wrong on December 20. Then at the end of the day when everyone went home, the two men let members of the gang into the bank, giving them uninterrupted access to the vaults.
The total loot: about $33 million in cash ($50 million against the2005 exchange rate). Police forces in Ireland were convinced that the PIRA (Provisional IRA) was behind the heist and that the money was used to fund the terror activities of the group. In 2005 detectives investigating suspected IRA money laundering arrested three men near a train station in Dublin. Inside their vehicle the police found 94,000 euro hidden in a Daz soap powder box.
In follow up searches detectives found $2,9 m (155,000 bank notes) in six holdalls and a plastic bag in the home of one of the involved, a financial advisor. In custody he admitted knowing the money was from the Northern Bank robbery and said he got around £5m from a Northern Ireland man on four occasions around or just after the time of the robbery.
That same month, around $100,000 was found in the toilet of the police athletic associations Newforge Country Club. The police later confirmed that the money was taken during the Northern Bank heist. The BBC reported that the stash was likely planted to distract detectives investigating the robbery and divert attention from events elsewhere.
A few yeards later in court the arrested financial advisor gave a different statement and claimed the cash came from the sale of a gravel pit in Co Offaly to Bulgarian businessmen. His son confessed to be involved in the money laundering . The police started confiscating their assets, including some cars. The two other men that were in the car were released. A lot of cash and a lot of bad guys are still missing. The relation with funding of terrorist activities was not solidly identified.
In criminal history there are a lot of spectacular heists and this is one of them. Most have one thing in common; if you don’t grab the cash back really quick, the chances of doing that later on are slim.
TruTV and Wikipedia published a “spectacular heist” top 10. You have just read about number 1. Interesting to browse through the other stories and recognize the commone theme; a lot of robbery money is still out there being laundered. Not on TruTV’s list: a Brazilian heist which included an underground tunnel to the Central Bank ($65 million in cash).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8017222.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4117219.stm
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/major_heists/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_bank_robbers_and_robberies
