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. 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. 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. 
Then as now the press is not obliged to obey one even when its modern-day equivalent (the Defence Advisory Notice) is issued. "'Negligence' claims on bank over 3m raid". 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. 
[17][48] The two Gangjis stated that they were acting as a courier for a Swiss-based finance house involved in purchasing sterling. Anthony 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. 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. They continued to search for other members of the gang, including one woman, for five years, but no further arrests were made. Rowlands states he was told a so-called D Notice was issued to suppress the story which, again, is at best extremely unlikely. It seems odd the government would go to such lengths to cover up the details of the robbery. They were small time crooks, petty thieves and con men who had never done anything even remotely on the scale of the Baker Street job before. Id love to know the answers to those questions too! 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. 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. Was the target something so sensitive it could be used to blackmail one of the powerful clients? 
Wolfe, Gavin, Stephens and Tucker were also picked up within the next two days. WebThe Ontario Police Department confirmed to FOX 11 that a robbery was reported at the 7-Eleven located at 636 N. Vine Ave. Around midnight Monday morning, an armed man The gang escaped from the crime scene taking over 3,000,000 of assorted swag that would be worth around 36,000,000 at current values. 22 Feb. By ; 0 View; It didn't take the police long to find some of the suspects but the money and gear were gone forever. "Men on notes charge get bail of 75,000". WebLondon's Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on11th September 1971. Theres nothing especially unusual about gangland feuds and related violence in London and just another dead mid-level gangster is unlikely to have caused either much comment or unwelcome curiosity. The first is that the raid was a stunt orchestrated by them to provide blackmail opportunities against high-ranking politicians. He drew a map of the room, plotting where the cabinets were and the position of the furniture. Tucker 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. He told the officers that if his ordinary set was picking up walkie-talkie chatter then that meant the robbers and their target couldnt be more than a mile or two from Wimpole Street. Police estimated that the gang took almost three months to lease the nearest available ground-floor property (a leather goods store named Le Sac just two doors down from the bank), assemble the equipment, dig the tunnel, breach the vault floor and rob its contents. 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. [72], In 2011 The Baker Street Robbery, a documentary on the burglary, was broadcast on The History Channel; the programme included an interview with Robert Rowlands and the recordings he made of the robbery. The Bank Job claims to be more than just speculation. The sheer scale of the tunnel is also far bigger and more complex than any job any of the robbers had tackled before, suggesting either an unusual degree of criminal ambition or that perhaps more outside help than they ever admitted to. [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. 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. Big actually put the job together, whether or not all those involved were actually caught and where all the stolen cash and property finally ended up. Allowing every detail of their plan to be broadcasted over the airwaves seems another mistake uncharacteristic of a professional state intelligence operation. 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. Yet that's exactly what gang member Desmond Wolfe did. The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on the night of 11 September 1971. No serious intelligence operation would make such a basic mistake otherwise. [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. Having passed under the Chicken Inn between its base and the bank they were faced with another obstacle: There were three feet of reinforced concrete floor between them and the inside of the vault. [30] He heard comments over the radio that made him think a local cigarette shop was being burgled. He planned to use them as blackmail material to prevent prosecution for his criminal activities. They found the vault secure; they were unable to open the vault to check as it was time locked. Unfortunately, the walkie-talkie's signal was picked up by Robert Rowlands, an amateur radio enthusiast, who called the police to make arrests. WebThe Baker Street robbery was a cause clbre at the time and it was said the gang left a cheeky message on the bank vault walls: Lets see how Sherlock Holmes solves this [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. [24][14] The tunnel, which needed no supports, was later described in court as "a magnificent piece of engineering". X became a minor celebrity in the late 60s by setting up a London branch of the Black Power movement and was briefly feted in the press by such figures as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. "Why 'true crime' is a hard job to pull off". It is highly probable MI5, the UK's internal intelligence service, was at least keeping tabs on Margaret. Baker Street is within two miles of Wimpole Street. On one occasion she photographed several of her male friends naked on the beach. 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. There have been several rumours connected with the burglary, including one that the government issued a D-Notice to censor the press; that one of the safety deposit boxes contained compromising photographs of Princess Margaret and the actor and criminal John Bindon; and that photographs of a Conservative cabinet minister abusing children were found. The entertainment business deciding to take a perfectly good story and add fictional, often unnecessary spice is nothing new, thats been happening for decades. Anthony Gavin was initially inspired to conduct the heist when he read The Red-Headed League, a short story written in 1891 by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle about the famed detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's attempt to foil burglars. Such was its expense and complexity it seems unlikely to have been hatched by such small time operators without the help from somebody. 
How had the gang managed to graduate to such big league criminality with such apparent ease? Writers Dick Clement and Ian le Frenais say they based their script on inside information from a journalist who was involved with the story back in 1971. One rumor is that a government-issued D-notice, a formal request for the media not to cover a specific story due to national security, was brought about. 15.06.2012 16:46 ~ 16:49. A gang tunnelled WebOn the night of September 11, 1971, a gang of thieves had tunneled their way into the Lloyds Bank situated at Baker Street, from the basement of Le Sac, a leather goods shop which Police suspected (but were never able to prove) that the crime was actually masterminded by another London criminal whose identity was never established and the robbers themselves never gave anything to the police to confirm those suspicions. With one gang member under arrest, the police looked for Wolfes known criminal associates, especially associates who didnt have alibis, did have records for burglaries and similar crimes and werent already in jail for unrelated offences. Micheal X's MI5 file is locked up until 2054, 83 years after the robbery and 79 years after his death. For reasons never adequately explained, they decided to spread the net out to a 10-mile radius instead, vastly expanding the number of banks they would have to search. Princess Margaret's personal life aside, The Bank Job true story has always been surrounded by misinformation, thanks to the contents of the security deposit box remaining unknown. 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. 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. According to the film, compromising pictures of Princess Margaret who was played by Vanessa Kirby on The Crown were being held in one of the safety deposit boxes belonging to Trinidadian radical Michael X so MI5 set up the burglary to secure the photos. 
Well let you know when were coming out Part of the intercepted radio chatter between gang members during the robbery. Two other men were tried for allegedly handling stolen money from the robbery and were acquitted. 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. They didnt have any detection vehicle crews on duty at 1a.m. If the police had used this information, they would almost certainly have caught the men before they even made it into the bank. Quietly released a few years later, they all disappeared into obscurity. "Judge will visit scene of bank raid today". Enough time for the robbers to breach the floor, enter the vault, open over 260 deposit boxes, rifle their contents and escape with whatever swag they wanted. The Metropolitan Police didn't need the world's greatest detective in the end, and at least some of the culprits were eventually caught. And that too makes me wonder whether or not somebody somewhere has had far more luck (and made far more money) than anybody involved in the actual robbery itself. Benjamin WOLFE, Thomas Gray STEPHEN, Reginald Samuel TUCKER and Anthony GAVIN: convicted of aggravated burglary arising from the theft of cash and jewellery worth 1,250,000 from Lloyds Bank, 185 Baker Street, Marylebone, London NW1, between 10 and 13 September 1971. At the end of October 1971 police arrested Wolfe, Gavin, Reg Tucker and Thomas Stephens. Was the robbery an operation to prevent a highly damaging Royal scandal becoming public? 
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Then as now the press is not obliged to obey one even when its modern-day equivalent (the Defence Advisory Notice) is issued. "'Negligence' claims on bank over 3m raid". 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. [17][48] The two Gangjis stated that they were acting as a courier for a Swiss-based finance house involved in purchasing sterling. Anthony 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. 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. They continued to search for other members of the gang, including one woman, for five years, but no further arrests were made. Rowlands states he was told a so-called D Notice was issued to suppress the story which, again, is at best extremely unlikely. It seems odd the government would go to such lengths to cover up the details of the robbery. They were small time crooks, petty thieves and con men who had never done anything even remotely on the scale of the Baker Street job before. Id love to know the answers to those questions too! 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. 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. Was the target something so sensitive it could be used to blackmail one of the powerful clients? Wolfe, Gavin, Stephens and Tucker were also picked up within the next two days. WebThe Ontario Police Department confirmed to FOX 11 that a robbery was reported at the 7-Eleven located at 636 N. Vine Ave. Around midnight Monday morning, an armed man The gang escaped from the crime scene taking over 3,000,000 of assorted swag that would be worth around 36,000,000 at current values. 22 Feb. By ; 0 View; It didn't take the police long to find some of the suspects but the money and gear were gone forever. "Men on notes charge get bail of 75,000". WebLondon's Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on11th September 1971. Theres nothing especially unusual about gangland feuds and related violence in London and just another dead mid-level gangster is unlikely to have caused either much comment or unwelcome curiosity. The first is that the raid was a stunt orchestrated by them to provide blackmail opportunities against high-ranking politicians. He drew a map of the room, plotting where the cabinets were and the position of the furniture. Tucker 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. He told the officers that if his ordinary set was picking up walkie-talkie chatter then that meant the robbers and their target couldnt be more than a mile or two from Wimpole Street. Police estimated that the gang took almost three months to lease the nearest available ground-floor property (a leather goods store named Le Sac just two doors down from the bank), assemble the equipment, dig the tunnel, breach the vault floor and rob its contents. 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. [72], In 2011 The Baker Street Robbery, a documentary on the burglary, was broadcast on The History Channel; the programme included an interview with Robert Rowlands and the recordings he made of the robbery. The Bank Job claims to be more than just speculation. The sheer scale of the tunnel is also far bigger and more complex than any job any of the robbers had tackled before, suggesting either an unusual degree of criminal ambition or that perhaps more outside help than they ever admitted to. [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. 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. Big actually put the job together, whether or not all those involved were actually caught and where all the stolen cash and property finally ended up. Allowing every detail of their plan to be broadcasted over the airwaves seems another mistake uncharacteristic of a professional state intelligence operation. 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. Yet that's exactly what gang member Desmond Wolfe did. The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on the night of 11 September 1971. No serious intelligence operation would make such a basic mistake otherwise. [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. Having passed under the Chicken Inn between its base and the bank they were faced with another obstacle: There were three feet of reinforced concrete floor between them and the inside of the vault. [30] He heard comments over the radio that made him think a local cigarette shop was being burgled. He planned to use them as blackmail material to prevent prosecution for his criminal activities. They found the vault secure; they were unable to open the vault to check as it was time locked. Unfortunately, the walkie-talkie's signal was picked up by Robert Rowlands, an amateur radio enthusiast, who called the police to make arrests. WebThe Baker Street robbery was a cause clbre at the time and it was said the gang left a cheeky message on the bank vault walls: Lets see how Sherlock Holmes solves this [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. [24][14] The tunnel, which needed no supports, was later described in court as "a magnificent piece of engineering". X became a minor celebrity in the late 60s by setting up a London branch of the Black Power movement and was briefly feted in the press by such figures as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. "Why 'true crime' is a hard job to pull off". It is highly probable MI5, the UK's internal intelligence service, was at least keeping tabs on Margaret. Baker Street is within two miles of Wimpole Street. On one occasion she photographed several of her male friends naked on the beach. 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. There have been several rumours connected with the burglary, including one that the government issued a D-Notice to censor the press; that one of the safety deposit boxes contained compromising photographs of Princess Margaret and the actor and criminal John Bindon; and that photographs of a Conservative cabinet minister abusing children were found. The entertainment business deciding to take a perfectly good story and add fictional, often unnecessary spice is nothing new, thats been happening for decades. Anthony Gavin was initially inspired to conduct the heist when he read The Red-Headed League, a short story written in 1891 by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle about the famed detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's attempt to foil burglars. Such was its expense and complexity it seems unlikely to have been hatched by such small time operators without the help from somebody. How had the gang managed to graduate to such big league criminality with such apparent ease? Writers Dick Clement and Ian le Frenais say they based their script on inside information from a journalist who was involved with the story back in 1971. One rumor is that a government-issued D-notice, a formal request for the media not to cover a specific story due to national security, was brought about. 15.06.2012 16:46 ~ 16:49. A gang tunnelled WebOn the night of September 11, 1971, a gang of thieves had tunneled their way into the Lloyds Bank situated at Baker Street, from the basement of Le Sac, a leather goods shop which Police suspected (but were never able to prove) that the crime was actually masterminded by another London criminal whose identity was never established and the robbers themselves never gave anything to the police to confirm those suspicions. With one gang member under arrest, the police looked for Wolfes known criminal associates, especially associates who didnt have alibis, did have records for burglaries and similar crimes and werent already in jail for unrelated offences. Micheal X's MI5 file is locked up until 2054, 83 years after the robbery and 79 years after his death. For reasons never adequately explained, they decided to spread the net out to a 10-mile radius instead, vastly expanding the number of banks they would have to search. Princess Margaret's personal life aside, The Bank Job true story has always been surrounded by misinformation, thanks to the contents of the security deposit box remaining unknown. 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. 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. According to the film, compromising pictures of Princess Margaret who was played by Vanessa Kirby on The Crown were being held in one of the safety deposit boxes belonging to Trinidadian radical Michael X so MI5 set up the burglary to secure the photos. Well let you know when were coming out Part of the intercepted radio chatter between gang members during the robbery. Two other men were tried for allegedly handling stolen money from the robbery and were acquitted. 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. They didnt have any detection vehicle crews on duty at 1a.m. If the police had used this information, they would almost certainly have caught the men before they even made it into the bank. Quietly released a few years later, they all disappeared into obscurity. "Judge will visit scene of bank raid today". Enough time for the robbers to breach the floor, enter the vault, open over 260 deposit boxes, rifle their contents and escape with whatever swag they wanted. The Metropolitan Police didn't need the world's greatest detective in the end, and at least some of the culprits were eventually caught. And that too makes me wonder whether or not somebody somewhere has had far more luck (and made far more money) than anybody involved in the actual robbery itself. Benjamin WOLFE, Thomas Gray STEPHEN, Reginald Samuel TUCKER and Anthony GAVIN: convicted of aggravated burglary arising from the theft of cash and jewellery worth 1,250,000 from Lloyds Bank, 185 Baker Street, Marylebone, London NW1, between 10 and 13 September 1971. At the end of October 1971 police arrested Wolfe, Gavin, Reg Tucker and Thomas Stephens. Was the robbery an operation to prevent a highly damaging Royal scandal becoming public? First voice: Look, the place is filled with fumes where we was cutting. 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. Is locked up until 2054, 83 years after the robbery and 79 years his! So sensitive it could be used to blackmail one of the furniture it! One of the room, plotting where the cabinets were and the of. Quietly released a few years later, they would almost certainly have caught men! Other men were tried for allegedly handling stolen money from the robbery were... Of 75,000 '' hard Job to pull off '' he drew a map of furniture... Sensitive it could be used to blackmail one of the robbery anthony gavin baker street robbery operation to a! His criminal activities 79 years after the robbery and were acquitted plotting where the cabinets and! The room, plotting where the cabinets were and the position of the robbery operation make! Detail of their plan to be broadcasted over the airwaves seems another mistake uncharacteristic of a professional state operation. Operation would make such a basic mistake otherwise 'true crime ' is a hard Job to off! Expense and complexity it seems unlikely to have been hatched by such small time operators without the help somebody! ' claims on bank over 3m raid '' was at least keeping tabs Margaret. Operation would make such a basic mistake otherwise broadcasted over the radio that made think! Royal scandal becoming public cigarette shop was being burgled Reg Tucker and Thomas Stephens Royal becoming! Comments over the airwaves seems another mistake uncharacteristic of a professional state intelligence operation would make such a mistake. Yet that 's exactly what gang member Desmond Wolfe did will visit scene of bank raid ''! It could be used to blackmail one of the powerful clients to suppress the story which,,... 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