Two held for huge UK heist

2006-02-23 22:47

London - A man aged 29 and a woman aged 31 were being held by police in London late on Thursday - the first arrests after Britain's biggest cash robbery the previous day.

The arrests came as a major hunt was under way after a raid which police said could have netted up to £50m.

"This is organised crime at the top level," said Adrian Leppard, assistant chief constable of the southern county of Kent, on Thursday.

At least six gangsters, armed with handguns and wearing masks or balaclavas, were involved in the raid on a privately-run security depot in Tonbridge, Kent, early on Wednesday.

In the run-up to the raid, gang members posing as police officers abducted the manager of the cash depot as well as his wife and young son.

Police announced a "significant" £2m reward for anyone coming forward with information that could lead to the capture of the "callous gang".

"There is no doubt we will catch these people", said Leppard, adding that 100 detectives and staff were working on the case.

At this stage, his assumption was that the gangsters were British citizens, "but we do not rule out anything".

All ports and airports were put on alert to prevent the gang from leaving the country, but experts said the robbers could already have left Britain.

Balkans a good place to start

"The money is going to leave the UK. They will look for countries in a state of flux, and with poor border controls", said money specialist John Horan on Thursday.

"The Balkans would be a good place to start", Horan added.

So far, the Bank of England has confirmed that £25m in old and new bank notes it had stored at the depot had been taken.

However, a full assessment of the haul from the heavily-protected Securitas depot could be made only once police forensic examinations have been completed.

"At least £20m was taken, but the amount could be as high as £40m or even £50m, said Leppard.

CCTV film showed that the cash was loaded on to a seven-ton Renault lorry inside steel cages, said Leppard.

The gangsters - who kidnapped the depot manager, simultaneously abducted his wife and eight-year-old boy and then "terrorised" depot staff at gunpoint - had put everyone involved "through a terrifying ordeal", he added.

Family held at farm

The robbers, posing as police officers in high-visibility jackets and with a blue light flashing on their white Volvo's radiator grille, stopped the depot manager's car on his way home on Tuesday evening.

They took him, handcuffed, to a nearby farm, while two other gang members visited the wife and son at their home, telling them that he had been involved in a traffic accident.

The wife and the child were then "driven around for hours" and taken to the farm where they, too, were held at gunpoint.

The depot manager was forced to led the gangsters to the site, where the gang arrived in several cars, and 15 staff were tied up and threatened at gunpoint.

Police said on Thursday the robbery followed a pattern similar to that of a bank raid in Northern Ireland in December 2004, where robbers got away with £26.4m after holding staff hostage.

That heist has been laid at the door of criminal elements in the Irish Republican Army by security agencies in Northern Ireland. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA