Richard English - Britain’s Biggest Heists TV - Heist: The Northern Bank Robbery - Odd Man Out 1947 -
Too many things point it having been the IRA. One is the manner of taking people hostage ... Second is the scale of the thing. Professor Richard English, author The History of the IRA
It was a brutal and audacious bank robbery using the maximum threat of violence and death. It sent shock waves around the world just days before Christmas in 2004 the theft of £26.5 took place from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast Northern Ireland. Britain’s Biggest Heists: The Northern Bank Robbery, 2011
Two employees and their families were abducted and held hostage by a criminal gang who threatened them with violence and death. ibid.
Following the raid the Northern Bank announced that it would take the drastic step to withdraw all its bank notes. ibid.
‘I’ve just actually went through an order of, of an abduction. I actually work in the Northern Bank cash centre. They used me to rob it. Thirty million.’ Heist: The Northern Bank Robbery, 911 call, BBC 2021
2004: It was the biggest bank robbery in British history. Two families held hostage. A crime that shook politics in Northern Ireland to its core. ibid. caption
Who robbed them? Did the IRA carry it out? If the IRA did carry it out, did Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams know about it? And they are at the heart of the Peace Process at this moment. ibid.
The Northern bank raid is among the biggest robberies of modern times, and yet so much of what happened is a mystery. ibid.
Internal bank CCTV captures the entire robbery unfolding. ibid.
6:28 p.m.: Chris returns to the bank for the real robbery to begin. ibid.
‘7 people have been arrested and more than two million pounds seized: a possible connection with the Northern Bank Robbery just before Christmas … ‘A major [IRA] laundering operation.’ ibid.
Two members of the IRA are arrested in Cork. ibid.
March 2008: Three years after the robbery Ted Cunningham faced ten charges of money laundering. ibid.
January 2007: Two years after the robbery cases against two suspects collapse. ibid.
They couldn’t get any convictions: which is extraordinary when you think about this: the scale of it, the political significance of it, and the resources that the police put into this, and the huge vested interest they had in getting a conviction. ibid.
This violence isn’t getting us anywhere. Odd Man Out 1947 starring James Mason & Robert Newton & Cyril Cusack & William Hartnell & Kathleen Ryan & F J McCormick & Fay Compton & Denis O'Dea et al, director Carol Reed, Johnny
As long as he lives he belongs to the organisation. ibid. geezer