Violent crooks stole £53million after a raid at the Securitas cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2006, but only £21m was recovered from the thieves, meaning £32m is still hidden
Millions of pounds could be rotting in the ground two decades on from Britain’s biggest ever cash robbery.
Violent crooks stole £53million after a raid at the Securitas cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2006. The gang kidnapped the manager Colin Dixon on his way home from work and held him hostage with his family, before forcing him to give them access to the depot overnight.
Seven masked men then held staff inside the facility at gunpoint while they loaded the cash onto a lorry, with millions left behind because it was as much as the HGV could hold.
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Five men were convicted at the main Old Bailey trial in 2008. Stuart Royle, Lea Rusha, Jetmir Bucpapa, Roger Coutts and Emir Hysenaj were all handed prison terms. Lee Murray was jailed in Morocco and Paul Allen was jailed in the UK for his role in plotting the raid.
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Of the £32m that was never recovered, Kent’s chief constable Tim Smith still hopes part of the haul can be traced, but said the old paper notes may be buried in the ground and degrading.
He said: “This was before plastic was introduced into bank notes, it degrades. So in 20 years of being buried… it is likely there’s an awful lot of it that has been destroyed.”
Chief Con Smith, the senior investigating officer on the night of the raid, recalled how in the first moments he knew only staff had been kidnapped to gain access to a cash site he had never heard of. Later at the depot, one worker told him: “I think it could be £50m.”
He said: “At that point, I realised there had probably never been a robbery of this much cash, certainly in the UK.”
The officer said the family had been “terrorised” by masked men with guns that night, adding: “For me it was a kidnap. This robbery was only facilitated by the kidnap of Mr Dixon and his wife and their child and they were put through hell.”
Two decades on, he said he is sure at least one suspect evaded capture: “I’m convinced there are still people out there, one in particular who I think was probably in that cash depository that we’ve never traced.”
The raid started when Mr Dixon was pulled over in his car by men dressed as police officers.
Two other gang members, also posing as police, went to Mr Dixon’s home and told his wife he had been in an accident. They were taken to a farm building in Kent, to where Mr Dixon was also later driven.
He was tied up at gunpoint and told he and his family would be killed if they did not cooperate. The family was later taken to the depot where Mr Dixon was forced to let one of the gang into the site. Staff at the depot were bound as the gang loaded bank notes into a 7.5-tonne white Renault truck, before they drove away.
After the raid, more than £9m was found in a container in Welling, south east London, and another £8m was found in a lock-up in nearby Southborough, with smaller sums elsewhere, but £32m had vanished.
The thieves drove away with £53m, but left £154m behind, making it potentially a £200m robbery.
True crime author Howard Sounes described the gang as “ragamuffins and misfits”. He said they did not have a strong idea of how much money there was in the building, adding: “They couldn’t steal anymore because they couldn’t fit it in the lorry. When it was counted, they didn’t actually have the wherewithal to count it, there was so much.”
The robbers had an “enormous” problem, because they stole too much money, he said, adding: “You think that’s every robber’s dream, isn’t it, to have £53m, but it’s very difficult to actually spend £53m in cash.”
Some took their share abroad and turned it into Euros, but Mr Sounes said others hid their cash in lock-ups, sports bags, wardrobes, and even a car glove compartment – and one gave his money to his mother. The trial heard one man disappeared to the Caribbean. Mr Sounes added he “is probably still there living it up”.
Twenty years after the raid, Kent’s top police officer has made fresh appeals for information. The chief constable said: “Ultimately, if someone should still face justice for this, I would want to see that happen for the victims.”
He said there were “people out there who know something we don’t” and one vital piece of information could lead to other suspects.
