Wolfe, Gavin, Stephens and Tucker were also picked up within the next two days. Was the 1971 Lloyds Bank safety deposit robbery a covert operation to retrieve compromising photos of Royalty? Allowing every detail of their plan to be broadcasted over the airwaves seems another mistake uncharacteristic of a professional state intelligence operation. 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. Menu. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. [21] To avoid being overheard, they dug only during the weekends. The robbers had rented the leather goods shop Le Sac, two doors north of the bank, and tunnelled a distance of approximately 50 feet (15 m) passing under the intervening Chicken Inn restaurant. Such a photograph would have been a scandal in itself, but did even more salacious pictures exist? [17][28] The tunnel was cleared of the debris created, and the hole was widened with a hammer and chisel. A 12-inch-wide (30cm) hole was blasted through the floor and into the vault. [74] The advertising for the film played up many of the rumours, both fuelling and reinforcing them:[75], [the gang] looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds. The software development came to an end and since 2007, I lost touch with Tony. These cookies do not store any personal information. [61][62][o] One witness, a retired jeweller, recounted how he identified some of his property by walking around tables on which several items were placed; he and twenty other people were unsupervised while they did this. It seems unthinkable that MI5 would be behind such a plan unless the gang agreed to deliberately take the fall for them. Anthony Gavin, Thomas Stephens and Reginald Tucker were subsequently arrested, convicted and sentenced to 12 years in jail for their roles in the Baker Street robbery. January 2020: Brinks Robbery Cap. It was late in the evening on 11 September 1971, and amateur radio enthusiast Robert Rowlands was scanning the airwaves from his Wimpole Street flat. It was questions like his that began a series of rumours, some probably myths, others legitimate and troubling questions that remain unanswered. Tales of Margaret's exploits on Mustique are legendary. The two were arrested and 32,000 of notes were seized. [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. [30] He heard comments over the radio that made him think a local cigarette shop was being burgled. Takings: 3m. But like the often very public behaviour of paedophiles such as Lord Boothby and MP Tom Driberg, anything that could damage the establishment was already not reported by mutual agreement. [65] The claim is dismissed by Duncan Campbell who writes "no D-Notice was even requested, far less granted";[66] the journalist Graeme McLagen observes that there was a news embargo on the Sundaywhile the burglary was still in progressbut that the events were widely reported over the following days. Reggie is resident barrister, his brother Neil is in the US. The hole in the vaults floor led to a cramped 40 ft long tunnel. When this also failed to work, they used gelignite to blast a way through. When someone working on an MI5 covert operation leases out a shop as a front for their illegal activities, they generally don't do it in their own name, allowing for their swift capture by the police. 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. No other major bank robbery in British history has faced the reporting restrictions that seem to be evident here. [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. Quietly released a few years later, they all disappeared into obscurity. The men dug five feet down in Le Sac, then tunnelled under the neighboring Chicken Inn a . [60] The trial ended on 23 January 1973 and sentences were handed down three days later. One curious piece of circumstantial evidence does exist, however. The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of the safe deposit boxes at the Baker Street, London branch of Lloyds Bank, on the night of 11 September 1971. . Empty deposit boxes lay scattered everywhere- the missing contents of which were estimated to be around 3 million (approximately 41 million in todays money). After the raid, many of the clientele did not come forward to report what they had lost; safety deposit boxes were designed to be discrete and were often used to store sensitive items and documents that their owners would often rather not even admit existed. After that, news of the raid virtually vanished from the UK media. Gavin, Tucker and Stephens were sentenced to twelve years in prison; Wolfe received a sentence of eight years, less than the others as he was in his 60s. He drew a map of the room, plotting where the cabinets were and the position of the furniture. The second time he contacted the police they accepted what he was saying, and began hunting for the burglars while the break-in was in progress. Atreides Management is a crossover fund that invests in high-growth technology and consumer companies across public and private markets with a long-term perspective. baker street robbery. [17][f] The property had a basement that, the group calculated, was at the same level as the bank vault. 15.06.2012 16:46 ~ 16:49. . The secrecy over the file of an obscure London gangster seems unwarranted. Today, this building is occupied by an estate agent. Nobody was ever arrested. The Perpetrators: Anthony Gavin, Thomas Stephens . On Sunday afternoon police gained entry to the Baker Street branch of Lloyds, located on the junction with Marylebone Road. He planned to use them as blackmail material to prevent prosecution for his criminal activities. The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on the night of 11 September 1971. [63][p] Another customer complained that he saw a ring in a wastepaper bin, that it was too easy to steal some of the smaller items, if one wished, and that one of the bank assistants had told him that two people had tried to claim the same pair of candlesticks. "[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. The story had fatal consequences for Michael X. This enabled police to track down Anthony Gavin of Brownlow Road, Dalston, Thomas Gray Stephens from Maygood Street, Islington . The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on the night of 11 September 1971. [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. Until . Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. The scene of a robbery at the Baker Street branch of . Tucker opened an account with 500 in December 1970 and two months later he rented a safety deposit box in the branch; over the next few months he visited his box thirteen times. Unlike similar heists, which have remained in the headlines for months and years afterwards, very little was reported about the robbery again until the publicity generated by the release of the Bank Job in 2008. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. The Baker Street Robbery . Cool interesting stuff features everything odd, weird, bizzare, strange or unusual. No serious intelligence operation would make such a basic mistake otherwise. Thirty-six years ago, one of the most remarkable and daring bank raids shocked Britain. "Why 'true crime' is a hard job to pull off". It is hard to understand why they would do this if there wasn't some element of national security involved. [17] The digging created 8 long tons (8.1t) of waste, which was hauled back into Le Sac and dumped towards the rear of the premises. [24][14] The tunnel, which needed no supports, was later described in court as "a magnificent piece of engineering". 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. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. Her funeral was held at Westminster Abbey on 19 April that year. As for Michael X, he fled to Trinidad where he was hanged four years after the raid for murder. The value of the property stolen is unknown, but is likely to have been between 1.25 and 3 million; [lower-alpha 1] only . Could it be there is something so explosive in those files that they might still be embarrassing decades after everyone involved is dead? 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. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Subscribe to my email list to receive my new posts directly. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express. [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. Micheal X's MI5 file is locked up until 2054, 83 years after the robbery and 79 years after his death. The Baker Street Robbery has more recently become famous because of the 2008 film Bank Job which was based on the heist and also a Channel 5 documentary special at the end of last year. The Baker Street Robbery, was an audacious bank robbery which occurred on, or to be more accurate, below Baker Street in the autumn of 1971. Stephens, Tucker, Wolfe and Gavin were charged with breaking into the bank and stealing the contents of the security boxesvalued at a minimum of 1.5millionand of possessing explosives; the two Gangjis were charged with handling stolen goods. The . They were small time crooks, petty thieves and con men who had never done anything even remotely on the scale of the Baker Street job before. Here comes what he picked (and we agree): 1971 Baker Street Robbery. Police always suspected that not only were there others involved but that there must have been a mastermind behind such a daring raid. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12 m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. They searched 750 banks in an 8-mile (13km) radius, but failed to locate the gang. That informant was actually Evening Standard journalist George McIndoe, who claimed to have learnt about the salacious photographs after getting to know two members of the Baker Street gang in the 1970s. The Baker Street robbery is the story of an audacious bank robbery which occurred on (or rather below) Baker Street in the autumn of 1971. . As soon as Tucker was alone, he would measure the room using the span of his arms and an umbrella he brought with him; he was aided in getting exact measurements by the regularly sized floor tiles, each of which was nine inches (23cm) square. Without a single alarm sounding, and without the use of any weapons, a team of robbers pulled off the astounding heist and ultimately made off with nearly 3 million (with an estimated 30m today). The value of the property stolen is unknown, but is likely to have been between 1.25 and 3 million; only 231,000 was recovered . Had the gang somehow managed to retrieve their booty after their release, right under the noses of the police? What is the biggest robbery in the UK? Elaborate bank robberies seem superfluous in the circumstances. Takings: None; the robbery was unsuccessful. Consultant and interviewee: Channel 5 Documentary Britain's Biggest Bank Job. One of the gang - Desmond Wolfe, had made the elementary mistake of hiring the leather goods shop that served as their base under his own name. The strange story of Mary Reeser Spontaneous Human Combustion. The safety deposit raid in 1971 is one of the most baffling in British criminal history, and rumours that its true purpose has been covered up by the British establishment persist to this day. [5] According to Paul Lashmar, the head of journalism at the University of Sussex, Gavin was a member of a gang headed by Brian Reader, who was also involved in the burglary,[6][7][8][d] although Reader firmly denies that he had any involvement in the events at Baker Street. Browse Locations. Sentencing March 7. Your email address will not be published. Robert promptly called the local police station but his claims were treated lightly- no doubt because it was just after 11pm on a Saturday night; a time when drunken pranks were commonplace. At the end of October 1971 police arrested Wolfe, Gavin, Reg Tucker and Thomas Stephens. The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of the safe deposit boxes at the Baker Street, London branch of Lloyds Bank, on the night of 11 September 1971.The . Even the culprits knew what they had pulled off was impressive, writing 'Let's see how Sherlock Holmes solves this one' on the wall, a reference to the Conan-Doyle story The Red-headed League which involves the detective foiling a similar bank robbery. Whatever the case, she had already compromised herself; a photograph of Margaret with the then wanted criminal Bindon was widely circulated in Fleet Street, although not actually printed by the press until many years later. As the night wore on, the two men continued to crop up on the air. The film is about the Baker Street Bank Robbery that occurred at the Lloyds Bank on the intersection of Baker Street and Marylebone Road in the West End of London on the night of the 11th September 1971. . Because these robbers weren't the criminal mastermind their unbelievable heist made them appear. Robert Rowlands, aradio hamoperator, overheard conversations between the robbers and their rooftop lookout at about 11pm. Reggie sworn off criminal cases takes on the case of a black cab driver accused of murder. This enabled police to track down Anthony Gavin of Brownlow Road, Dalston, Thomas Gray Stephens from Maygood Street, Islington and Reginald Samuel Tucker from Lee Street, Hackney. Baker Street robbery1971911Lloyd'sMarylebone Road . What if the real target of the robbers was not loot but something even more valuable? [17][48] The two Gangjis stated that they were acting as a courier for a Swiss-based finance house involved in purchasing sterling. The robbers had rented the leather goods shop LeSac, two doors north of the bank, and tunnelled a distance of approximately 50 feet (15m) passin. Seem to be broadcasted over the radio that made him think a local cigarette was! 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