We want you to mind for one hour from now until approximately one o'clock and then to go off the air, get some sleep and come on the air with both radios at six o'clock in the morning. One of the gang - Desmond Wolfe, had made the elementary mistake of hiring the leather goods shop that served as their base under his own name. The location of the bank was one block down from Holmes's address, Reader, another career criminal, was later involved in the 1983, 10,000 in 1971 equates to approximately 150,000 in 2023, according to calculations based on the. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzJKhpchQlDWMNBb3qgqlZQ/join SUBSCRIBE to LU. Real name Michael De Freteis, Michael X was a London gangster, drug dealer and slum landlord in the 1960s and 70s. Little did they realise however that on the other side of the thick, steel door, an audacious gang were busy sifting through over 250 safe deposit boxes. Even today, paedophile scandals are rumbling on at the BBC and Westminister. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. Yet the gang who committed the heist managed to make off with an absolute fortune. Police eventually tracked down the other gang members from their associations with Wolfe. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. [30] It is not known if the gang were still in the vault at the time, although police suspect that they were, but keeping quiet following a warning from the lookout. They found the vault secure; they were unable to open the vault to check as it was time locked. [73] A fictionalised version of the burglary is the subject of the 2008 film The Bank Job, which uses the storyline that the crime was either set upor later covered upby MI5 to secure the compromising photographs of Princess Margaret, that were being kept in a deposit box at the bank by Trinidadian radical Michael X. Rowlands thought it was a good idea, so used a small cassette recorder to make a record of the conversations. On Monday morning the manager of the Baker Street Lloyds branch opened for business and was horrified by the scene that met him. The Queen's younger sister would never become monarch herself and failed to carve any kind of meaningful role for herself in the Royal hierarchy. Until . No big pay-days from the tabloids to tell their story, no lucrative book deals. By 1971, CB Radio was already massive in America and beginning to take off in the UK, despite still been technically outlawed. Two brothers have law offices in Baker street. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! Micheal X's MI5 file is locked up until 2054, 83 years after the robbery and 79 years after his death. Anthony Gavin, Thomas Stevens, Reginald Tucker and an unidentified accomplice rented a leather shop called Le Sac, which was two shops over from the Lloyd's Bank located at the corner of Baker St. and Marylebone Rd. Police always suspected that not only were there others involved but that there must have been a mastermind behind such a daring raid. Discover the truth behind unexplained ancient mysteries, UFO mysteries, secret locations and paranormal events. 185 Baker Street, Marylebone, London NW1, between 10 and 13 September . "Judge will visit scene of bank raid today". Title Role Productions. Anthony J. Baker, Ph.D. has a longstanding interest in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate cardiac muscle contraction in health and disease. It was questions like his that began a series of rumours, some probably myths, others legitimate and troubling questions that remain unanswered. And the supposed D-notice placed on the press preventing them from reporting what really happened? [45][71] The following year Commander Bert Wickstead, a senior officer at Scotland Yard, was appointed to head an inquiry into the allegations. Nobody was ever arrested. The robbers had rented the leather goods shop LeSac, two doors north of the bank, and tunnelled a distance of approximately 50 feet (15m) passin. The Baker Street Robbery. "Men on notes charge get bail of 75,000". 15.06.2012 16:46 ~ 16:49. . A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12 m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. Shortly after the robbery in 1971, Michael X was allowed to leave England for his native Trinidad, despite the fact he was due in court on charges of extortion. When this also failed to work, they used gelignite to blast a way through. Without a single alarm sounding, and without the use of any weapons, a team of robbers pulled off the astounding heist and ultimately made off with nearly 3 million (with an estimated 30m today). It was this process that had generated the discussion about smoke and fumes which Robert Rowlands had eavesdropped upon. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. cash and jewels and they were suspected to have taken royal family secrets too! The gang initially tried to use a jack to force a hole in the vault floor and when this failed they used a thermal lance. [14], In March 1973, 64 of those whose safety deposit boxes had been broken into sued Lloyds for 500,000. [64], There have been several rumours circulating about the burglary. they reached their peak by pulling off the 1971 Baker . A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12 m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. Aug 14, 2020 GERRY Hermans rated it really liked it. The problem is they should never have gotten away with a penny. The Big London Underground Quiz - robslondon.com, Exploring Londons Pubs: Five Pubs, Five Stories. Reggie sworn off criminal cases takes on the case of a black cab driver accused of murder. was arobberyof the safe deposit boxes at a branch ofLloyds Bankon the corner ofBaker StreetandMarylebone Road,London, on the night of 11September 1971. [17] What they did not know was that there was an old well under where the tunnel ended,[25] and the pressure of the jack pushed the bottom of their tunnel down into the well, rather than raising the vault's floor upwards. The Metropolitan Police didn't need the world's greatest detective in the end, and at least some of the culprits were eventually caught. Wheres Anthony Gavin and the others convicted now? Some of the rumours inspired the story for the 2008 film The Bank Job. He called the police, who initially did not take him seriously, so he used a small cassette recorder to make a recording of the burglars' conversations. [26] Their intention was to use the 100-ton jack to force a hole in the 3-foot-thick (0.91m) reinforced concrete floor, and railway sleepers were laid on the floor to support it. Rowlands had informed the police that the range of the transmissions meant the robbers must be nearby - within about a mile of his Wimple Street flat. is one of the most notorious bank heists in British history. The safety deposit raid in 1971 is one of the most baffling in British criminal history, and rumours that its true purpose has been covered up by the British establishment persist to this day. Takings: 3m. [25] The police later widened their search to include five others. The owner of Le Sac was 66 year old Benjamin Wolfe of Dovercourt Road, East Dulwich who, using his own name, had leased the shop to the gang. On September 12, 1997, six men robbed the Dunbar Armored facility on Mateo St. in Downtown Los Angeles, California of US$18.9 million (equivalent to $30.5 million in 2020). As for Michael X, he fled to Trinidad where he was hanged four years after the raid for murder. Bank practice of the time was for staff to leave customers in private while visiting the vault. Consultant and interviewee: Channel 5 Documentary Britain's Biggest Bank Job. MI5 is renowned in the intelligence world for its skill, efficiency, and cunning. Baker Street robbery, September 1971. . The Bank Manager: See also. One of the men appeared to be inside the unidentified branch whilst the other was perched on the roof acting as a lookout. [74] The advertising for the film played up many of the rumours, both fuelling and reinforcing them:[75], [the gang] looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds. [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. The story, so it goes, begins some 4,200 miles away on the island of Mustique in St Vincent, where the princess hosted the most outrageous parties at the unlikely royal residence. With a tunnel leading straight from the bank vault to the basement of the Le Sac leather goods shop he had leased, he was essentially caught red-handed. 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 FBI is seeking information regarding a bank robbery that took place today, October 17, 2022, at the TD Bank branch at 401 South State Road 7, Hollywood, Florida. Anthony Gavin, Thomas Stephens and Reginald Tucker were jailed for their part in the robbery. [3] Although the common name for the events is the "Baker Street Robbery", it is legally defined as a burglary. "Three are charged with 1,250,000 bank raid". 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. See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive. [17][f] The property had a basement that, the group calculated, was at the same level as the bank vault. Two other men accused of handling banknotes from the robbery wereacquitted. [53] Informers provided the first names of two of the gang members and incomplete details of a pub that had been taken over by another member. Whilst technically voluntary, the UK press would rarely break a D-notice, and several are still used and in effect today. [43] The following day he adjourned the case; no reason was given and no date to resume proceedings was set. It has often been reported that after four days of news coverageBritishauthorities issued aD-Notice, requesting that such reporting be discontinued for reasons of national security and that the story disappeared from newspapers. The two Gangjis were found not guilty,[59] Stephens, Tucker and Gavin were each given sentences of twelve years; Wolfe received eight yearsshorter than the others on account of his age. Each branch was visited by both bank staff and police. The Baker Street robbery. It is not contested that a such a request was made to the press regarding their reporting of the Baker Street robbery. Her funeral was held at Westminster Abbey on 19 April that year. Anthony Webster . Such a photograph would have been a scandal in itself, but did even more salacious pictures exist? On the evening of Saturday, September 11, 1971, a robbery was taking place on Baker Street in London. The images had been put in the bank by a mysterious man known only as Michael X, The Queen has THIS key attribute that Prince Charles lacks, Moment Prince Harry put Sky Royal reporter on the spot over 'virgins', Mr Bindon died of an Aids-related illness in 1993, How Meghan Markle is a little more unexpected and youthful than Kate. But with the police knowing from the transmissions on Rowlands radio that the gang were trying to dig their way directly into the vault rather than go in through the front it is staggering that this search was deemed sufficient to dismiss the bank as the possible location of the robbery. What did they do, where did they go after release? An investigation some years later showed that a request had never been made to the D-Notice committee at that time. Required fields are marked *. [17] The gang then used the thermic lance in an attempt to cut through the floor;[27] when this failed they drilled holes in the underside of the vault floor and packed them with gelignite. 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. The men dug five feet . The heist was then widely reported for a while, the BBC and most of the national press reported on the crime. [14], The gang began their entry into the vault on Friday 10 September, after the bank closed for the weekend. Links. No serious intelligence operation would make such a basic mistake otherwise. [31] At around midnight he recorded dialogue between the gang inside the shop and the nearby lookout about their need to take a break: First voice: Right, well listen carefully. 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 value of the goods that were stolen during the heist is still unknown as the police only managed to retrieve a small sum. The raid made the headlines in September 1971 and was dubbed the Walkie-Talkie Bank Job due to a tip-off from a member of the public who heard robbers communicating with one another using the devices. More info. [65][68] Campbell describes the story as "cheerful nonsense". The world is full of unexplained events, strange mysteries, and mysterious legends. [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. kela: . January 2020: Brinks Robbery Cap. The pair were allegedly snapped in the most compromising of ways, with images eventually kept in a safe in Lloyds bank in Central London - the same bank which would be subsequently raided in the not too distant future. The Baker Street Robbery has more recently become famous because of the 2008 film Bank Job which was based on the heist and also a Channel 5 documentary special at the end of last year. [15][e], In May 1971 the owners of the leather goods shop Le Sac at 189 Baker Streettwo doors down from the banksold the lease of the property for 10,000 to Benjamin Wolfe, a 64-year-old seller of ornaments and knick-knacks, and a contact of several gang members. Shortly afterwards Rowlands and listening policemen heard the final radio broadcast "Would you like to change to the other channel, over". in London. Disheartened by his earlier call to the law and now armed with recordings, Robert decided to go higher up and phoned Scotland Yard directly at around 1am. In September of 1971 a branch of Lloyds Bank in Baker Street, London was robbed. Another time Bindon performed his famous party trick involving hanging 5 half pint glasses from his penis, much to Margaret's delight. [49][n] The case opened in the High Court in 1977, by which time there were 138 plaintiffs seeking damages of 660,000. "naused" is slang for to ruin or mess up. The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of the safe deposit boxes at the Baker Street, London branch of Lloyds Bank, on the night of 11 September 1971.. Their loot included cash, jewels -- and possibly secrets directly from the British royal family. Quietly released a few years later, they all disappeared into obscurity. Benjamin Wolfe, Anthony Gavin, Thomas Stephens and Reginald Tucker were arrested after Wolfe was found to have rented their base under his own name. Its believed other criminals- possibly including a female- were also involved but never caught. 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. There is no evidence to support these claims and they have been widely dismissed. The value of the property stolen is unknown, but is likely to have been between 1.25and 3million;[a] only 231,000 was recovered by the police.[b]. The entry hole he, Tucker and a third gang member created in Le Sac was 15 inches (38cm) wide[21] and through 6 inches (15cm) of concrete. At her hideaway on the Carribean island of Mustique, Margaret would entertain a string of young men, society figures and even those from the criminal fraternity like infamous cockney gangster John Bindon. Untold story of Baker Street bank robbery. Investigators are colorfully . With the robbers broadcasting their crime live over the airwaves, it's a mystery why the police never caught the Baker Street gang red-handed. One is that the government issued a D-Noticea formal request that the media not publish a story on a specific subject for reasons of national securityto stop any news being released. The first is that the raid was a stunt orchestrated by them to provide blackmail opportunities against high-ranking politicians. The Baker Street Robbery SUMMARY SUMMARY Benjamin Wolfe, Anthony Gavin, Reg Tucker and Thomas Stephens were all arrested October of 1971 due to Benjamin Wolfe signing a lease to Le Sac in his own name, giving police information that led to Gavin. In the film an underworld figure named Michael X is storing sexual photographs of Margaret taken on her holiday home in Mustique in the Baker Street vault with the intention of using them to blackmail the British establishment into turning a blind eye to his criminal activities. Although apparently said in jest, Robert thought this was a good idea and decided to act upon the advice. [21] To avoid being overheard, they dug only during the weekends. None of it was recovered. If the police had used this information, they would almost certainly have caught the men before they even made it into the bank. [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. It is highly probable MI5, the UK's internal intelligence service, was at least keeping tabs on Margaret. Mr Bindon died of an Aids-related illness in 1993, while Margaret died of a stroke in 2002. Instead, they sent their men on a wild goose chase of more than 170 banks across ten miles of north-west London, massively decreasing the odds that they would find the correct location in time. With limited resources and the need to ask the permission of each bank to search it, they failed to stop the gang in time. Lloyds Bank, on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road, London. [32] At one stage in the morning a waiter from the Chicken Inn restaurant heard noises from within the bank and peered through the windows of the building to see if anything could be seen. Read More. Desmond Wolfe leased the store used as the tunnel entrance (something that would come back to bite him later on). Cool interesting stuff features everything odd, weird, bizzare, strange or unusual. The raid at Baker Street branch of Lloyds bank was then Britain's biggest and most ambitious, the thieves crowbarring open 260 boxes and making away with an estimated 30m in today's money. 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. [10] It was headed by Brian Reader, was carried out over a weekend and involved breaking into a vault containing safety deposit boxes, although in this case the burglars used a heavy-duty drill to enter through a wall. Carly Read, a journalist for Express, detailed the . Unexplained Mysteries - owned by Aliens since 2011. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Menu. When someone working on an MI5 covert operation leases out a shop as a front for their illegal activities, they generally don't do it in their own name, allowing for their swift capture by the police. 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