Robbing the robbers

Its doubtful that the Bank of England will really lose any money from this robbery, but its good to see that the BOE was finally caught with their pants down. I have a suspicion that this may have been an inside job, espcially noting that the bank will get all of the money back regardless of whether the robbers are found.

Bank of England Orders Probe
After $43.6 Mln Robbery

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of England Governor Mervyn King ordered a review of security arrangements for the storage of banknotes after at least 25 million pounds ($43.6 million) was stolen from a depot in southeastern England.

Authorities are hunting for six members of an armed gang who posed as police officers to abduct the manager of a Securitas AB depot and his family in order to gain entry yesterday to the building in Tonbridge, Kent. No one was injured. The site stores cash for the Bank of England and businesses.

The central bank said an ``initial estimate'' of the amount stolen is 25 million pounds, while the Financial Times cited unidentified people close to the investigation as saying the figure may be as much as 40 million pounds in banknotes. That would make it one of the largest bank robberies in British history. Kent Police are seeking information on the thieves.

``This gang meticulously planned this crime and will have spent a lot of time preparing for this robbery,'' Detective Superintendent Paul Gladstone said in a statement today. ``They may have carried out surveillance at both the depot and followed the movements of the manager and his family.''

Cash Reimbursed

The Bank of England said it ``is working closely with Securitas and the police,'' according to an e-mailed statement. ``There is no cost at all to the bank or the taxpayer. The governor has set up a review of the security arrangements for the storage of banknotes.''

The ``Great Train Robbery'' gang in 1963 stole 2.6 million pounds, worth about 50 million pounds today. In December 2004, a Belfast branch of Northern Bank was robbed of 27 million pounds.

The central bank has been reimbursed by Securitas for the initial estimate of 25 million pounds, ``and any further sum will be reimbursed to the bank as soon as the amount is known,'' according to the bank's statement. Authorities are calculating the exact value of the stolen cash.

The Bank of England issued its first notes in 1694 and there are 35 billion pounds' worth of English notes in circulation. The stolen cash probably wasn't marked, so it may be difficult to identify, the bank said.

`Handcuffed'

Kent Police said the events leading up to the raid started during the evening of Feb. 21, when the manager of the depot was stopped on his way home by what he thought was an unmarked police car.

``A passenger wearing a high-visibility jacket and police- style hat got out and spoke to the manager who, thinking these were genuine police officers, got back into the car with him where he was handcuffed,'' the police force said on its Web site.

Around the same time, two men went to the manager's home and abducted his wife and 8-year-old son, with the men saying they were police officers and that the manager had been in an accident. The manager, his wife and son were taken to a farmhouse, where they were threatened, then to the depot, where he was forced to open the gate around 1 a.m. yesterday.

A white Renault 7.5-ton truck also arrived at the site. Six men wearing masks and carrying handguns tied up the depot's 14 workers and the manager and his family, and then loaded the cash into the truck, police said.

Police are seeking information from people who may have seen the truck or the manager's silver Nissan Almera car or witnessed anything unusual at the Securitas Cash Management Ltd. depot on Vale Road in Tonbridge. The car was stopped on the A249 road at around 6:30 p.m. Feb. 21.

`Traumatic Experience'

Securitas, the world's largest security services company, expressed its ``revulsion at the circumstances'' of the robbery. The staff endured ``the most terrible and traumatic experience,'' Operation Director Tony Benson said in a statement.

Securitas, based in Stockholm, also has faced difficulty in Sweden, where cash-shipment robberies have more than doubled to an average of 55 a year, from 26 a year on average from 1994 to 2000, according to the country's National Council for Crime Prevention.

In November, Sweden's transportation union members temporarily stopped work on cash-delivery trucks to protest the danger posed by the robberies.