The manager of the NatWest bank in Sunbury, Middlesex, was kidnapped and held hostage with his family overnight in Surbiton. He was brought to the bank in the morning, when staff arriving at work were bundled inside while the vaults were cleared. And there have been plenty of other examples in the intervening decades, concerning banks and building societies, culminating in the Northern Bank raid in Belfast in 2004, which netted the perpetrators £26 million.
Dixon was driving his silver Nissan Almera to his home in Herne Bay, and was pulled over on the A249, just outside Stockbury, a village north-east of Maidstone, by what appeared to be an unmarked Volvo S60 police car. It had flashing blue lights behind the front grill, and the two cars stopped in a lay-by close to the Three Squirrels pub.
A man, wearing high-visibility clothing and a police-style cap, approached Dixon, and asked him to get into the ‘police car’, which Dixon did. He was then handcuffed by other men in the car and driven west on the M20 motorway to the West Malling bypass, where he was bound more securely, transferred into a Parcelforce van and driven to a farm in Staplehurst, Kent. Here, he was threatened at gunpoint, being told that, if he didn’t co-operate, his family would be killed.
While all this was going on, at about 6.30pm, two other gang members, also posing as police, went to Mr Dixon’s home and told his wife Lynn and eight-year-old son Craig that Colin had been involved in an accident. They were taken from their home and driven around for six hours, before being taken to the same farm in Kent.
After a short discussion, during which Colin Dixon was again threatened with a gun, he, his wife and son were driven in the truck to the Securitas depot where they arrived around 1.00am. Threatening the employees with a Skorpion machine pistol, a pump-action shotgun, a handgun and an AK47 assault rifle, fourteen employees were bound and held at gunpoint by the crew wearing balaclavas, and the crooks left with their haul in a 7.5 tonne Renault Midlum truck at about 2.45am. They left behind a further £154,833,29 because there was no more room in their truck.
The staff and Dixon family had been locked into the cash cages, although eight-year-old Craig was small enough, and brave enough, to be able to squeeze through the bars and free the others. The alarm was then raised.
The Bank of England, to whom most of the money belonged, was reimbursed to the tune of £25 million by Securitas the same day, with a promise that the rest would follow once an audit had been completed. The robbery proved to be the firm’s undoing; in July 2007, Securitas announced that it intended to leave the cash management market, and withdraw from the joint venture which gave them business from Barclays and HSBC.
With the money being virtually untraceable, the task facing ACC Leppard was to become career-defining. Described as a broad-shouldered, square-jawed police veteran of 22 years, he cuts an imposing figure. He made his mark in 2000 after leading an investigation which resulted in three people being jailed at the Old Bailey for a contract killing. He hoped that a £2 million reward might now help him solve the country’s largest cash heist, and he didn’t have to wait long for a break. The thieves, so methodical in the planning and execution of the robbery, bungled everything from then on in a manner that defies belief.
On Thursday, 23 February 2006, a Parcelforce van thought to have been used in the abduction of Dixon and his family was found abandoned at the Hook and Hatchet pub in the village of Hucking, near Maidstone. The same day, a Volvo S60 and a red Vauxhall Vectra – also thought to have been used and made to look like a police car for the abductions – were found in the village of Leeds Castle. The Volvo had been set on fire. On the same day, police arrested a 29-year-old man and a women, aged 31, in Forest Hill, south London. A 41-year-old woman was also arrested by the Metropolitan Police at the Portman Building Society in Bromley, south London. She was dressed as a Salvation Army nurse and drew attention to herself by trying to pay in £6,000 in notes in tape marked ‘Tonbridge’. Hours later, Dixon’s Nissan Almera was also found in the car park of the Cock Horse pub in Detling.
On Friday, 24 February, Kent Police recovered a white Ford Transit van from the car park of the Ashford International Hotel. It was found following a tip-off from a member of the public. The vehicle contained two suitcases and a holdall containing £1,370,500, along with guns, balaclavas and body armour. Again, on the same day, metal cages and packaging material that had been used to transport the money were found in a field near Detling and, on the evening of Saturday 25 February, armed police also raided a house in Southborough, near Tunbridge Wells.
On the afternoon of 26 February, Kent Police challenged two men who sped off in a blue BMW 3 Series coupé on Marine Parade in Tankerton, near Whitstable. Police marksmen shot at the car’s tyres – other accounts say a Stinger was used – and two men were arrested. Then, on 27 February, two men were arrested by armed officers in the Greenwich area of London.
The following day, 28 February, the white 7.5 tonne Renault Midlum truck was discovered. Again, that same day, Kent Police raided Elderden Farm, off Forge Lane, in the Staplehurst area and conducted extensive forensic searches of the surrounding land and buildings, and conducted further searches they found £105,600 under a tree in an orchard.
Late on 1 March 2006, police confirmed that they had arrested a car dealer, John Fowler, and that he had been charged with conspiracy to rob Securitas; they also referred to three other charges of kidnapping Colin, Lynn and Craig Dixon. A Stuart Royle had been charged with similar offences and Kim Shackleton had been charged with handling stolen goods.
They appeared at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court on 2 March, and were remanded in custody until 13 March, when they appeared at Maidstone Crown Court.
During a police raid on an industrial depot run by Roger Coutts on 2 March, a substantial amount of cash was discovered. Twelve holdalls containing £9,655,040 were found at ENR Cars. A Jetmir Bucpapa was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, as was Lea John Rusha the following day. A further arrest was made in Bexley on Saturday, 4 March, and a man was subsequently released on bail. John Lupton was not seen again.
On 5 March, detectives found another £8,601,990 in a lock-up in Southborough. So, as of 6 March, police had recovered £11 million – stashed somewhere was a further £39 million in used banknotes.
A further development occurred on 7 March when two employees of a firm that had been contracted from a local employment agency by Securitas were arrested, strengthening suspicions that it had been an ‘inside job’. In fact, it was a story that couldn’t possibly have been made up – an illegal immigrant called Ermir Hysenaj, and Anthony Black, the brother-in-law of a London gangster and veteran robber, worked at the place.
Two days later, the police recovered a further £8.7 million. The investigation now moved to Morocco, where, on 25 June, in a joint operation with local police, four men were arrested in a shopping centre in the Souissi district of the capital Rabat. Among the men taken into custody was a 26-year-old Sidcup man, Lee Murray. He was arrested with a man known as Paul ‘The Enforcer’ Allen. Police now confirmed that a total of 30 people had been arrested in connection with the robbery and, because of the costs of the operation, Kent Police requested a top-up of £6 million from the Home Office to help them out. Chief Constable Mike Fuller said, ‘Our own view is this is unique as far as robberies and armed robberies go. We hope the Home Office will support us in paying some of the costs.’
The trial began at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, 26 June 2007, amid tight security. Prosecuting counsel, Sir John Nutting, told the jury, ‘They [the accused] were inspired by the lure of luxury, ease and idleness, and were prepared to target the innocent and vulnerable to achieve it.’
Presided over by Mr Justice Penry-Davey, the first few weeks focused on the role of the manager Colin Dixon, with the defence cross-examination highlighting the ‘coincidences’ in his conduct which might be interpreted as suggesting that he could have been the inside man.
However, on 28 January 2008, the jury returned guilty verdicts on St
uart Royle, Jetmir Bucpapa, Roger Coutts, Lea Rusha and Ermir Hysenaj. £8 million had been found in a lock-up near Rusha’s home, and his fingerprints were all over the loot.
John Fowler, 59, of Chart Hill Road, Staplehurst, and Keith Borer, 54, of Hempstead Lane, Maidstone, were cleared of all charges. Fowler had told police of the location of £105,600 under a tree on his farm. He had found the cash in a vehicle which he had loaned out and had been returned to him. A 32-year-old hairdresser, and former Harvey Nichols sales girl, Michelle Hogg, agreed to be a prosecution witness if all charges against her were dropped. She had made the gangs’ prosthetic disguises, normally worn by actors. For his part, Keith Borer received £1,350 for spraying a van, but he claimed that he had had no idea that the money had come from the robbery.
Later in 2006, a further £1 million was found in the boot of a car, but more details cannot be disclosed for legal reasons.
On 29 January 2008, Hysenaj, 28, of New Road, Crowborough, East Sussex, was sentenced to 20 years in prison with an order that he serve a minimum of 10 years. Royle, Rusha, Bucpapa and Coutts were all given life sentences with an order that they serve a minimum of 15 years.
Rusha was one of the two men dressed as police officers who first kidnapped Colin Dixon, while Hysenaj was a Securitas employee who had filmed inside the Securitas depot using a hi-tech video camera the size of a 50p coin that was fitted to his belt.
Speaking after the jury returned their verdicts, Roger Coe-Salazar, the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Kent, said, ‘When you have a case of this magnitude, it’s easy for it to be romanticised like Ocean’s 12, as a victimless crime. There is nothing romantic about a child being held at gunpoint by a masked man. This was a callous and highly dangerous crime.’
A total of £21 million was finally recovered. The outstanding sum is thought to be in Morocco and northern Cyprus, a testament to the ingenuity of those who sought to launder their share of the proceeds quietly and efficiently.
Under the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act, estate agents, solicitors, accountants, bankers, even casinos face prosecution if they knowingly – or negligently – allow crime proceeds to be laundered. This can carry a jail term of up to five years and a heavy fine. Any deposit over £10,000 will automatically trigger red flags with a bank. At one time, prior to this Act, it was not unknown for crooks to wander into an HM Revenue office and ask for a large sum of cash to be paid into their account in lieu of paying their returns. This deposit – and it could amount to several million pounds with no questions asked – would then be banked locally and then electronically transferred to the Revenue’s accounts office centre at either Cumbernauld or Shipley.
When the audit was completed, the payee would be notified of overpayment and receive his money back, via a cheque, in the post. One could then bank the cheque with no suspicion at all – the money had come from the government after all! Today, however, HM Revenue & Customs is not allowed to accept cash.
In attempting to launder the massive proceeds of the robbery, the Securitas Crew would have certainly looked abroad and, during the trial, much was heard about money being laundered in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus, which has no extradition treaty with Britain, and is not covered by the European Union rules on money laundering. It is a haven for money launderers because no one is going to be alert to its origins – the minute you pay it into a bank, it stops being paper money and just becomes figures on a piece of paper. ‘It becomes part of the bank’s sterling reserves,’ says Nick Kochan, author of a book on laundering called The Washing Machine.
Brinks Mat forensic lawyer, Bob McCunn, who spent 20 years pursuing a number of people through the civil courts both in Britain and abroad, and who has recovered £27 million, said, ‘If I was planning a big robbery like the Securitas job, the first think I would do is set up a good way of money laundering.’
The Securitas trial also heard suggestions that Sean Lupton, who jumped bail in December 2006, may have been involved in laundering the money. Indeed, Coutts, in his defence, sought to point an accusatory finger at two brothers, who, he said, were in northern Cyprus. This moved Turkish Cypriot diplomat, Ms Serap Destegur, to stress, ‘Money laundering and the black market are looked at very seriously in our country and I’m sure my government would be happy to co-operate if the British police asked for our help.’
Coutt’s lawyer, Graham Blower, said Hussein and Mustafa Basar – who were both of Turkish-Cypriot origin – had left the UK shortly after the robbery. He said that Hussein worked for a ‘Mr X’, the robbery’s alleged mastermind, who could not be named for legal reasons.
The trial heard that some of the Securitas money had been invested in property. The Old Bailey also heard that Coutts had visited Cyprus only a month before the raid to look at potential properties, leaving Bob McCunn to speculate, ‘They might have bought property as an investment or they might just have bought property and then sold it again to launder the money through the banking system.’
Over the decades, northern Cyprus has gained itself something of a reputation as a haven for fugitives from British justice. Tycoon Asil Nadir, who fled while awaiting trial for offences of dishonesty in connection with the collapse of his Polly Peck trading empire, has lived in northern Cyprus since 1993.
In 2007, Brian Wright was jailed for 30 years for running a multi-million pound ring smuggling drugs into Britain from South America. He was discovered living in the region by a BBC film crew in 2002. He remained in his home in the village of Lapta until 2005 when he was arrested after travelling to Spain. Customs officials said the network was ‘probably the most sophisticated and successful global cocaine trafficking organisation to ever target the UK’. There were 19 convictions worldwide.
Wright was one of the richest criminals ever punished. The 60-year-old, who also had a home in Chelsea, was jailed for 30 years, and he’ll probably die in prison as Mr Justice Moss told him, ‘I accept that you will be a very much older man when you are entitled to be released. I accept, too, the possibility that you may not live that long.’ The judge added, ‘Your activities caused unqualifiable misery to tens of thousands of victims. Those who import and distribute it [drugs] call upon themselves lengthy terms of imprisonment… you played for the very highest stakes and won, for a number of years, a luxury lifestyle. You knew the consequences of detection and conviction.’
Wright’s gang used luxury yachts to import the drugs from Venezuela, via the Caribbean, to the UK, and when he was asked for any mitigating circumstances, he replied, ‘There is no mitigation, Your Honour.’
The Wright probe was sparked in September 1996 when a yacht named Sea Mist was discovered off course in Cork, in the Irish Republic. It was carrying 599kg (1,320lb) of cocaine with a street value of £80 million hidden in a dumb waiter.
Over the next two years, four further boatloads of cocaine were smuggled ashore under the control of the Wright organisation. In February 1999, officers seized 472kg (1,040lb) of cocaine from a lock-up garage in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and from a farm in Laleham, Surrey. Mega-rich, well-known in horse racing circles, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, including comedian Jim Davidson – who was called to testify at his trial – it was also learned that Wright had previously been involved in serious incidents that defrauded the betting public.
If the Securitas Crew had managed to launder their money, they would have had to accept making a huge loss on the £32 million to turn it into ‘clean money’. They would lose around 20 per cent, and there was always the inherent risk of being ripped off. In fact, several people believed to have been handling money from the Brinks Mat job ended up dead, with the suspicion being that they were killed while trying to embezzle money from the heist.
With five of the Securitas robbers now locked away, there is still one important suspect on the run – the second phoney cop who pulled over Colin Dixon is thought to be Keyinde Patterson, who was captured wearing a high-visibility jacket and police cap on the depot’s CCTV. Originally from Jamaica, a
nd now thought to be somewhere in the Caribbean, he has an identical twin called Taiwo, whom police traced and interviewed during the inquiry. The Patterson twins ended up in Croydon and it is thought that Keyinde may have been the ‘Mr X’, the mastermind of the robbery through a south London underworld connection.
Ironically, Keyinde Patterson might not have been free if it had not been for the CPS, who dropped charges of conspiracy to murder against him on 18 October 2005. He had been accused of being part of a gang who were responsible for a horrific night of violence on 2 October 2004. He and two other men were accused of shooting dead Rufus Edwards and Mark Warmington at the Spotlight Club in Croydon. Just over an hour later, the same gang fired a hail of bullets at a car in Bristol, hitting two beautiful women, Asha Jama and Donna Small, who had taken a lift from a nightclub with Curtis Brooks, whom police believed was the actual target. Brooks and another male passenger were uninjured in the shooting, but Donna was left permanently disabled and Asha blinded in her left eye after being hit by flying glass. And in another sickening twist of fate, Patterson’s co-accused were eventually acquitted of all charges, but not until July 2006 – five months after the Securitas robbery. So detectives have accepted they do not have a prima facie case against the fugitive, so even if they could trace him, they would not have sufficient grounds to extradite him.
For a very short time, the Securitas Crew were the richest criminals in British history. Their plan to execute the raid was flawless, and it relied on an inside man for the venture to succeed. Detectives know from experience there will always be an ‘inside man’ in armed robberies of this magnitude, and the Securitas job was no exception.
In 1975, £8 million was stolen from a Bank of America branch in London’s Mayfair. Stuart Buckley, an electrician who gave the robbers codes to the vaults, was later jailed for seven years.
Gangland UK Page 18
