Police probe links between £50m heist and Belfast raid

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk...

This is an interesting developement. I live in Kent and the place is "buzzing" at the moment and the van with "supposed money" was only found an hour from where i live. But back to the subject, i did connect two and two together when i first head of the heist, but i dont think the provisional IRA would risk effecting its "we have given up" pact by stealing £50 million....

we will have to wait and see

As with all jobs as big as ones like there, there's usually a whiff of "inside job" floating around.

The Northern Bank Belfast raid was an inside job. The same tactic of kidnapping families of bank employees to force those employees to participate in the robbery, otherwise known as "tiger kidnapping", was used.

Wikipedia - Kidnapping

Tiger kidnapping is taking an innocent hostage to make a beloved do something, e.g. a child is taken hostage to force the shopkeeper to open the safe; the term originates from the usually long preceding observation, like a tiger does on the prowl.

Tiger kidnapping tactics have been used successfully by paramilitary groups such as the IRA since as far back as 1972.

Along with two more recent arrests it looks like we'll finally see who was behind the heist.

things are developing very,very quickly...

expect another update within afew hours.

Turns out the total amount stolen is £53 Million.

It was broadcast today on Sky news that Police were interested in a martial arts group whom they believed had an involvement in the heist.

[edit on 27/2/2006 by FactoryLad]

I know there was a whiff of speculation about this possible connection straight after the robbery happened but I suspect that was probably based on no more than the previous one in Belfast was the biggest robbery of cash until this one.

In each case I think it's pretty certain that the enormous amounts of dosh were both a surprise to those stealing it and, ultimately, a major problem for them.......but in their stupid greed I suppose they couldn't help themselves but lift the lot when it came to it.

(For those unfamiliar with the Belfast robbery the raid netted so much cash that the bank issuing the notes - here in NI local banks can issue their own £ Sterling notes instead of everyone just using Bank of England ones - that the bank very quickly phased out and replaced the type(s) stolen with new designs thereby rendering much of what was stolen useless and simply so much waste paper.)

I stand to be corrected but is it not fair to say that all talk of any such link Between this robbery and the Belfast one has now disappeared?


[edit on 2-3-2006 by sminkeypinkey]