Huge increase in robberies

Despite the attention the Northern Bank robbery attracted, it was not an isolated incident. Suzanne Breen reports

The Northern Bank may have been the biggest and most high profile heist but there has been a dramatic increase in the number of robberies in the North in recent years.

An attempted robbery of a Securicor van on the outskirts of south Belfast on Thursday was rare, in that it was foiled and an arrest made.

A man tried to grab a cash box from a guard just before the van called at an Ulster Bank branch in Dunmurry. But two members of Securicor staff, who were in a separate surveillance van, tackled him.

One man was arrested and an imitation handgun was recovered from the scene.

Two Securicor vans were robbed in Belfast outside Northern bank branches in the space of two hours on the same day in February.

The GMB trade union, which represents Securicor staff, has called for police or British Army protection for guards delivering cash to banks.

Around £20,000 was stolen on the Shankill Road. A guard was punched and forced to hand over a cash box. A witness said: "They came out of nowhere when the van stopped at the bank. It seemed as if they knew when it would arrive and how the delivery would be made."

Later, in the docks area, a security guard had a gun put to his head by a man who stole a cash box. The guard was making a delivery to a Northern Bank branch on the Dargan Road. Securicor has offered a substantial reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for both robberies.

Northern Ireland has seen a rise in the number of "tiger kidnappings" where a hostage is taken at gunpoint while a relative is ordered to facilitate a theft. There were around 45 tiger kidnappings last year and 37 in 2003.

The IRA has been involved in some of the robberies. Last September, a group of armed and masked men burst into the home of a family at Saul, Co Down.

The mother, along with her son and daughter, were taken by car to an empty house in Belfast where they were detained overnight.

The man, who works for a security firm, was told by the gang members to turn up for work as usual in the morning. He was ordered to drive his van to a golf club in Belfast, where £500,000 was stolen.

Last October, a mother and child were held hostage while the father was ordered to report into work as normal. The gang brought a lorry to the Gallahers' tobacco warehouse on the outskirts of south Belfast where the man worked and loaded it with £1.2 million worth of cigarettes. Security and republican sources claimed IRA involvement.

Also in October, five men took over a house in north Belfast and took a man and two children at gunpoint to a derelict house. The children's mother was forced to go and empty the contents of a safe at a local post office where she worked.

Both the Provisional IRA and the INLA have been involved in a spate of bank robberies in Strabane from 2001. Police have noticed an increasing forensic awareness with robbers using sophisticated techniques to leave absolutely no trace of their presence at the scene.

Last May, the Provisional IRA carried out what police described as a "well organised and very professional" robbery of over £1 million worth of goods from the Makro warehouse on the outskirts of Belfast .

The gang filled a 40-foot lorry to capacity with electrical equipment, tobacco and alcohol. Seven masked men held staff hostage during the raid.

The IRA was also responsible for stealing around £1 million of cigarettes from a hijacked lorry in south Armagh in December 2003. At least 12 men set up a fake roadblock on the main Belfast-Dublin route in the Jonesboro area and stopped the lorry. One of the men smashed the driver's window and pulled him from the lorry.

The IRA was behind the robbery of £4 million worth of cigarettes from containers in Belfast docks in June 2001. The cigarettes were bound for export to Belgium but were loaded onto four lorries and driven away.

Loyalist paramilitaries have also been involved in robberies. In 1996, the UDA was behind the theft of £1 million from a security van in south Belfast.

Securicor employee Keith Winward, a former British soldier, was jailed for 15 years for his part in the robbery. None of the money was ever recovered.

Winward had claimed that three masked and armed men, who said they were from the IRA, had taken over his home, held his family hostage and ordered him to take the van to derelict buildings on the Fort Road on the outskirts of west Belfast.

But the court heard that masked men who took over Winward's home had not "burst in", but walked in through the front door which Winward had left open for them. At no time did Winward attempt to raise the alarm or alert his co-driver until they reached the Fort Road.

Last September, the UDA was blamed for the attempted abduction of a First Trust bank manager in east Belfast. Five north Belfast loyalists are currently awaiting trial in connection with the incident.

In 1987, the UVF stole £250,000 from a Northern Bank in Portadown. The money was used to fund a weapons' shipment from South Africa.

But the world's biggest bank robbery was last December when £26.5 million was stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast city centre. Police are certain the IRA was responsible.

The Northern Bank admitted security was inadequate. The raiders were able to park a van outside the bank on two separate occasions within an hour and load it with a total of more than £25 million.

An hour earlier, a bank official had carried a holdall containing over £1 million past security guards after the gang, who were holding his family hostage, told him to conduct a dummy run.

The bank says that following a detailed review of its security procedures, the chances of a similar robbery have been "minimised".p