5 July 2021 • 10:29pm
Darragh MacIntyre looks back over the evidence
Credit: BBC
It was the politest of 999 calls. Chris Ward, an employee of the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast, was reporting a crime. “Hello, how you doing. I wonder if you could help me? I just actually went through an ordeal of an abduction,” said Ward, before explaining that he had been used to rob the bank. “How much are we talking?” asked the operator. “Thirty million altogether.” The operator lets out a gasp: “My God.”
That was how police were first alerted to the biggest bank job in British history.
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The unsolved £26.5 million bank job that traumatised Northern Ireland
A new Radio 4 series revisits 2004 s Northern Bank raid. Host Glenn Patterson explains why this is unfinished business for us all
6 April 2021 • 4:00pm
CCTV footage showing a member of staff at Northern Bank in Belfast leaving the bank with a bag containing money, January 2005
Credit: Reuters
Belfast, 2004. With just four more shopping nights before Christmas, the city centre was packed. But little did these festive purchasers know that the biggest bank heist in British and Irish history was taking place right under their noses. An armed gang, who had taken the loved ones of two Northern Bank officials hostage to force their cooperation, raided its headquarters and made off with a whopping £26.5 million. The case dominated headlines, ruptured the Irish peace process - and, to this day, remains unsolved.
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