Blaggers Inc - Britain's Biggest Armed Robberies by Terry Smith

Author:Terry Smith [Terry Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781857827576
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Detective Chief Inspective Peter Wilton of the Flying Squad, based at Walthamstow, had been called back from a family reunion in Somerset. By the time he arrived at the crime scene it was complete mayhem. The press and media had all been tipped off about the spectacular raid, joining the throng of local police constables, photographers and forensic officers who were collecting witness statements, searching for clues and fingerprints.

Almost immediately, the DCI suspected that it was an inside job. What professional gang of robbers would venture into a seemingly impenetrable building blind? From the very outset, he decided to keep an open mind and wait to see what came out of this organised mess. One thing was for sure: if the senior detective could solve this case it would become the highlight of his career, inevitably leading to promotion.

On Tuesday 5th April, the Commander of the Flying Squad, Frank Cater, briefed a team of sixty detectives at City Road police station. He made it plain to all that this was a major enquiry and that it was imperative to catch the villains.

Preliminary findings suggested the robbers had overpowered a solitary guard and waited patiently for another seven employees to enter the building. As the guards entered they were blindfolded, gagged and placed inside a storeroom. The robbers were incredibly civil towards their captives, using their first names, making them tea and rolling them cigarettes, even placing clothes underneath them for comfort and massaging one guard’s limbs because of poor blood circulation.

Things only turned nasty when James Alcock refused to divulge where the key was, and the combination numbers to the vault. But what really intrigued the detectives was how the gang appeared to have intimate knowledge of the shift patterns, but not the most recent changes to the rota. Also, they knew that the top lock on the vault was called ‘number one’ and the bottom lock was ‘number two’. More strikingly, the robbers even seemed to know about the secret panic button in the vault.

All this pointed to an inside job for Wilton. There were also some scuffle marks on the outside of the perimeter wall, which suggested that was where the robbers had climbed over, and a cigarette butt found in the toilet. Other than that, there were no facial identifications, no fingerprints, nothing. In short, the Flying Squad was looking for a highly professional gang of armed robbers with cockney accents and loads of money.

The first task the detective set himself was to obtain all the files on the previous armed attacks on Security Express vehicles. For he believed that, if there was a mole on the firm, he or she may have had a tickle before the big one came along. Secondly, there was a massive £500,000 reward put up by Lloyd’s of London which he hoped would loosen a few tongues in the underworld. Thirdly, there were only a select number of armed villains capable of a robbery of this magnitude, and he wanted them put under close surveillance.

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