Here is The Bank Job true story explained. [58], The trial of the four gang members and the two Gangjis opened on 2 January 1973. 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. Wolfe was quickly apprehended and the other gang members, all known associates of Wolfe, soon followed. 
Newspapers and later publications provided the following estimates: 231,000 in 1973 equates to approximately 2,972,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 2,500 in 1973 equates to approximately 32,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 75,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 1,128,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 30,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 451,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 500,000 in 1973 equates to approximately 6,433,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 660,000 in 1977 equates to approximately 4,362,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 3,000 to 4,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 45,000 to 60,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the. It didn't take the police long to find some of the suspects but the money and gear were gone forever. Through a contact at the local security company protecting the bank the gang knew that the tremblers in the vault floor were turned off due to false alarms caused by work on nearby roads, a major security lapse. 
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They continued to search for other members of the gang, including one woman, for five years, but no further arrests were made. What ensues is a wild ride, with greater repercussions than the gang imagined. Rowlands states he was told a so-called D Notice was issued to suppress the story which, again, is at best extremely unlikely. The true purpose of the Baker Street heist remains shrouded in mystery too, and this robbery still has many unanswered questions, even fifty years after it happened. The value 1971 burglary of safety deposit boxes in London, 1.25 million in 1971 equates to approximately 18,797,000 and 3 million in 1971 equates to approximately 45,112,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the, 231,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 3,474,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the. But, like so many films based on real events, the Baker Street Robbery never really needed spicing up in the first place. WebAfter taking almost three months to tunnel under a branch of Lloyds Bank on Baker Street, on September 1, 1971, three robbers forced open more than 260 safety-deposit boxes [73] In 2023 the History channel series History's Greatest Heists used dramatised re-enactments in a documentary of the robbery. With the gang just a few feet away behind the 15-inch thick door of the vault, the bank was dismissed as the location of the robbery because there were no signs of a break-in. The British Council, "Closed extracts: Approximately 800 pages". All these men were known to the police, but none was thought to have the skills for something as complex and difficult as this. Quietly released a few years later, they all disappeared into obscurity. "Three are charged with 1,250,000 bank raid". WebThe Baker Street robbery was a robbery of the safe deposit boxes at a branch of Lloyds Bank on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road, London, on the night of 11 Wolfe, Gavin, Stephens and Tucker were also picked up within the next two days. Like most criminal enterprises it was, theoretically at least, simple. Was the target something so sensitive it could be used to blackmail one of the powerful clients? [17][f] The property had a basement that, the group calculated, was at the same level as the bank vault. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vera Miles 2DVDs 23 Paces To Baker Street-Van Johnson/Psycho-Anthony Perkins at the best online prices at eBay! Baker Street is within two miles of Wimpole Street. Just the opposite, in fact, as media attention can often generate witnesses and jog their memories into offering vital clues. [60] The trial ended on 23 January 1973 and sentences were handed down three days later. [11][12] Thomas Stephens, another second-hand car salesman with no criminal record, was used to acquire the tools needed for the break-in, including a thermal lance and a 100-ton jack; one of Reader's friends, Bobby Mills, was employed to be the lookout man. See Photos. on a Saturday morning, assumed it was yet another hoaxer whod perhaps taken one drink too many. True story heist films like the A24 movie The Bling Ring are bound to take creative liberties, but The Bank Job true story has always been shrouded in mystery which makes the extreme creative liberties it takes not only forgivable but fitting. "Judge will visit scene of bank raid today". [37][38] One of the gang members in the shop thanked him for staying on the roof all night and informed him that they planned to finish the job early that afternoon. Micheal X's MI5 file is locked up until 2054, 83 years after the robbery and 79 years after his death. Police found the members of the gang soon after the break in; one of the burglars, Benjamin Wolfe, had signed the lease for Le Sac in his own name and informers provided information that led to Gavin. WebPeople named Anthony Gavin. A D-notice is a request from the government to the press not to report on a specific event that is deemed a risk to national security. [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. One small story did appear in The Times in 1973 reporting on the conviction of the three men involved in the raid, but this looks like a curiously scant return for such a sensational crime. Simply to reach the vault the robbers had to choose a nearby shop (leased by an accomplice), break through the floor to a depth of 5 feet, tunnel 40 feet under the Chicken Inn fast food shop between its base and the bank itself (which meant digging through around eight tons of earth and rubble), then tunnel 15 feet back up (owing to sloping ground), break through three feet of reinforced concrete forming the vault floor, break open hundreds of deposit boxes, sort through them for anything worth taking and then escape back through the tunnel with the loot. WebAccording to police, the two suspects - later identified as 20-year-old Tyler Dumas and 19-year-old Edwin Witty - led officers on a pursuit after they fled the scene of a robbery near [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. Because these robbers weren't the criminal mastermind their unbelievable heist made them appear. After all, it was Benjamin Bugsy Siegel (ironically himself the victim of a contract killer) who coined the famous criminal line that gangsters only kill each other. Bereft of a sense of purpose, the young Princess would increasingly lose herself in a life of hedonism and become notorious for her drinking, partying and a succession of lovers. The burglary was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal, who was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in which Sherlock Holmes waits in a bank vault to arrest a gang who have tunnelled in through the floor. [2] He decided to use a nearby premises and tunnel up into the floor of the bank; the plan was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", an 1891 short story by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Bank practice of the time was for staff to leave customers in private while visiting the vault. 
The owners of every box forced open had to be identified, informed and asked exactly what they had deposited which, for any depositor with anything either highly embarrassing or outright illegal in their box, could have caused serious problems. In 1971 British banks were usually closed from Friday afternoons until Monday mornings, giving them the maximum time between burgling the vault and the crime being discovered when the bank re-opened. If MI5 was so desperate to see him silenced then a relatively simple killing would have been easier to arrange. But it wasnt acted on. Anthony Gavin. [43] The following day he adjourned the case; no reason was given and no date to resume proceedings was set. He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap - a wanted criminal who seems to In later years, a far more sinister variation on the Royal scandal theory has emerged. Drupal theme by ThemeSnap.com, John Wayne Gacy Confessed to Killing Dozens (December 22, 1978). Rowlands notified the police, who were slow to believe his claim that he had happened upon a genuine robbery in progress. One of the most persistent rumours about the Lloyds Bank robbery is that a D-notice was placed on the press to prevent them fully reporting the details of the crime. Two other men were tried for allegedly handling stolen money from the robbery and were acquitted. WebAnthony Gavin, Thomas Stephens and Reginald Tucker were jailed for their part in the robbery. Another rumor is that the safe deposit box contained photos of Princess Margaret and the criminal actor John Bindon, which has again, been debunked. In January 1973 all four men were convicted. When this also failed to work, they used gelignite to blast a way through. Whether this was an honest mistake, incompetence or a deliberate blind eye been turned is now impossible to say. Road, East Dulwich who, using his own name, had leased the shop to the gang. Given the gangs use of CB radios police also tried mobilizing radio-detection vehicles from the Post Office. Second voice: I suggest we carry on tonight, mate, and get it done with.
Real name Michael De Freteis, Michael X was a London gangster, drug dealer and slum landlord in the 1960s and 70s. All this had to be done without tripping any of the vaults security devices or arousing any public attention while digging the tunnel and robbing the vault. [30] He heard comments over the radio that made him think a local cigarette shop was being burgled. The film alleges (on scanty, limited and sometimes dubious evidence) that it was masterminded by the British Security Service (MI5) to recover compromising photographs of senior public figures including Princess Margaret which were being used by a London criminal to blackmail authorities into letting him continue operating. detroit red wings salary 2002. This time he was absolutely insistent that a major robbery was still in progress and this time Scotland Yard detectives were sent to his home to talk it through and listen to the tape. Princess Margaret's antics in Mustique were well-worn gossip in Fleet Street, as were the sexual proclivities of many other politicians and high profile society figures. The entertainment business deciding to take a perfectly good story and add fictional, often unnecessary spice is nothing new, thats been happening for decades. WebA well-crafted thriller, The Bank Job is inspired by the 1971 Lloyds Bank Robbery on Baker Street, London. Every one of the hundreds of pieces of swag left behind had to be catalogued and photographed, the tunnel had to be made safe to enter before being traced back to its source, evidence left in the tunnel and the leather goods store had to be catalogued and examined and then the police could actually start hunting for the gang themselves. The heist-thriller, directed by Roger Donaldson (Al Pacino's The Recruit), explores the real-life Lloyds bank robbery of 1971 which took place on Baker Street in London. Desmond Wolfe was in the leather goods trade when not breaking the law and it was Wolfe who leased the shop the gang used as a base. "[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. Unfortunately, like banks, the Post Office worked conventional hours as well. [61] Four days into the trial, the judge visited the bank and the rooms where the property had been on show. Revelations continue that many high-profile establishment figures were routinely protected, a conspiracy of silence preventing them from been exposed. [7] A Dictionary of Law by the Oxford University Press defines robbery as "The offence of using force against any person, or putting them in fear of being subjected to force, in order to commit a theft";[50] burglary is defined as "The offence, under the Theft Act 1968, of entering a building with the intention of committing one of three specified crimes in it [including] theft.
Related: This Is A Robbery True Story: The Gardner Art Heist Explained. Theres also a question mark over whether or not a so-far-undiscovered Mr. The robbery required a hitherto unseen level of patience and expertise from the thieves, utilizing then hard to obtain radio communications equipment, explosives, expensive digging machinery and even a thermal lance. The now elderly Reader made the claims at his trial for involvement in another famous robbery, the 2015 heist of the safety deposit boxes at London's Hatton Garden. 
[17][48] The two Gangjis stated that they were acting as a courier for a Swiss-based finance house involved in purchasing sterling. WebPolice announced on Thursday that they had arrested a 66-year-old man who was the womens neighbor in the Powell Avenue building in connection with the heinous crimes. [41][42][43][h][i] Because of the way the gang communicated the burglary was soon nicknamed "the walkie-talkie job".
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. It caused a seismic shockwave across the banking industry and panic amongst the rich and powerful clientele who had their most private, and possibly even illegal, valuables stored in the vaults. The amount of evidence was huge, time was short and Londons banking community (not forgetting over 260 less-than-happy customers) was in a state of shock. Second, Michael X was a professional criminal, a freelance felon whose main employment was as a slum landlord, pimp and sometime enforcer. [67] Another rumour is that one of the safety deposit boxes contained compromising photographs of Princess Margaret and the actor and criminal John Bindon. If evidence for such a ring had been found scattered on the floor of a bank vault back in 1971, it would certainly have been concealed by the authorities. [3] Although the common name for the events is the "Baker Street Robbery", it is legally defined as a burglary. Nobody was ever arrested. If MI5 were involved in planning the robbery, then they made some inexplicable errors which led to the certain capture of their thieves. WebAnthony 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. Sign Up. 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.
True to the criminal code, none of the four men offered any information or offered to give evidence in return for lighter sentences when the case came to trial. [75] The advertising for the film played up many of the rumours, both fuelling and reinforcing them:[76], [the gang] looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds. 
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