Bank robbery, which took place in London in 1971, still confidently occupies the top lines of the ratings of the most audacious crimes of the 20th century.
On Monday, September 13, 1971, bank employees coming to work did not at first find anything suspicious. However, when one of them entered the vault where the safety deposit boxes were located, he immediately sounded the alarm. The floor of the vault was blown up and the safes were opened and gutted.
On the wall of the vault, the kidnappers left the inscription, "Let's see how Sherlock Holmes handles this." This was a reference not only to Baker Street, but also to the story "The Redheads' Union". In it, robbers made a dig under a bank vault. Intruders from the 1970s used the same scenario: the dig under the bank came from a convenience store about 15 meters away on the same side of the street. The building was rented out but empty.
The case was immediately complicated by the fact that the detectives (and there were more than 100 of them) were unable to estimate the amount stolen. Not all the owners of the boxes agreed to reveal their names, and some of the robbed refused to specify what was stolen. According to one of the assumptions, documents compromising the Queen's sister, Princess Margaret, could have been stolen from the bank. However, there was no confirmation of this version.
According to the most general estimates, the bank lost valuables worth from 1 to 4 million pounds. And what is most surprising, the police, as it turned out, had been warned that somewhere in the area of Baker Street robbery was taking place, but could not prevent it.
Two days before the ill-fated Monday evening of September 11, amateur radio operator Robert Rowlands heard strange conversations on the air. From them, Rowlands concluded that he had witnessed a robbery at a tobacco store. He went to the police, but the guards did not take his words seriously, decided that it was a prank. However, they offered Rowlands (apparently to get rid of him) to record the conversations.
The amateur radio operator did so, and then it became clear that the robbers were robbing not a store, but most likely a bank. The robbers used ciphers in their speech, but some phrases suggested that they were opening safes one by one. This time the police believed Rowlands, and on Sunday, September 12, the officers went to the neighborhood banks to check them out. It was impossible to establish exactly where the crime took place, the radio interception radius was about 13 kilometers. In total, the police had to go around 750 bank branches, they visited Lloyds. There were no signs of forced entry on the doors, the bank was tidy and the police did not visit the vault because the door was locked for the weekend.
After September 13, the picture of the crime was restored quite accurately. The intruders made an undercut, for which they had prepared thoroughly. In the store, where the tunnel began, they found radios, a thermal imager, an acetylene torch, and a huge pile of earth. The base of the tunnel was reinforced with sleepers: initially the robbers wanted to raise the floor of the store with a 100-ton jack, but they failed, and eventually the floor was blown up.
From the intercepted radio conversations, the detectives concluded that there were four men and a woman in the gang, then expanded the list. One suspect was easily identified as Benjamin Wolfe, the tenant of the store from which the digging was taking place. He signed the lease in his real name. Then informants led the police to Anthony Gavin, the same way the police came to Reg Tucker and Thomas Stevens, who were also members of the gang. As Tucker was handing over the money, two others were arrested - Gangjee's uncle and nephew. The unknown woman remained a mysterious stranger, she could not be found.
The head and inspirer of the criminal syndicate was Anthony Gavin. The young man, who at the time of the crime was about 30 years old, once worked as an instructor in physical training, then retrained as a photographer. He was suspected of involvement in the gang of one Brian Reeder, a much more experienced criminal. It was even assumed that the entire robbery on Baker Street was planned by Reeder, but no evidence of his guilt was found.
The second key figure was Tucker, who had been a depositor at the bank since 1970 and then rented a safe deposit box. According to existing standards, bank employees did not accompany the owner of the safe deposit box to the vault; he was there alone. Over the course of several months, Tucker visited the safe deposit box 13 times (which did not arouse suspicion) and was able to measure the entire room with an umbrella. He drew up a detailed plan of the vault, which made the robbers' job much easier.
During the robbery, the gang opened 268 boxes. The amount stolen, the names of the victims, and the exact composition of the gang have never been fully determined. The trial of the arrested robbers took place in January 1973. Wolfe, the oldest of the defendants, was sentenced to 8 years in prison, the others - to 12 years in prison. Gangjee's uncle and nephew claimed that they had no knowledge of the crime at all and were acting as couriers, the court acquitted them. Amateur radio operator Rowlands also almost ended up in the dock for breaching the confidentiality of radio conversations, but in the end the bank paid him a bonus of 2,500 pounds and he was not prosecuted.
The court session was classified, which instantly gave rise to dozens of rumors. It was said that the police were involved in the case (allegedly they had their share), that documents compromising members of the Cabinet of Ministers had been stolen from safes, that even Mi-5 (military intelligence) was involved in the crime. However, none of the members of the gang, many of whom are still alive, have ever given any explanations.
