Armed raiders disguised getaway vehicle as unmarked Garda car

Corruptable

In a frightening story of theft, three armed raiders in Cork showed how easy it is to make an escape by simply disguising their car as an unmarked Garda vehicle.

On Wednesday we brought you the news about three armed raiders from Cork who stole over €100,000 from an ATM as it was being refilled by G4S cash delivery staff. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Today it has been revealed that the three armed raiders managed to make their swift getaway in a civilian car disguised as an undercover Garda car. We can only imagine that every crook in town will now be doing the same.

The thieves simply put a blue flashing light on the dashboard of a stolen black Saab and floored it away from the scene of the crime at a petrol station in Carrigaline.

Eyewitnesses told Gardaí they thought it was an unmarked Garda car and moved out of the way so as not to hinder the ‘Garda’s’ pursuit. Which, for once, is a pity as they were the lads being chased.

The car, which had been stolen from the Douglas area last November, had been fitted with fake number plates and was found burnt out near Ballinora GAA club around thirty minutes after the robbery took place.

The Gardaí are investigating the motives behind the raid, however they believe it could be in connection with a family-based gang who owed a substantial amount of drug money.

Anyone with information should contact Togher Garda Station on 021 494 7120.

http://www.joe.ie/motors/motors-news/armed-raiders-disguised-getaway-vehicle-as-unmarked-garda-car-0019525-1

Not a new issue to this forum, but this is one of the few times a story of criminal usage reaches the media.

charlemont

Very clever..

goldie fish

Well people are easily confused. It seems that wearing a blue shirt(regardless of shade) makes people think you are a garda...

Corruptable

goldie fish wrote: »

Well people are easily confused. It seems that wearing a blue shirt(regardless of shade) makes people think you are a garda...

Ah now, without the shoulder tabs, you'd surely know they were only a member of a particular political party!

knird evol

charlemont wrote: »

Very clever..

You think they're the first people that ever did that ?

charlemont

knird evol wrote: »

You think they're the first people that ever did that ?

No but it was a smart move as heading northbound on the N28 at half four in the day is very risky as it would be full of traffic but with the flashing light they made advantage of the road itself as other cars would have plenty of space to get into the hard shoulder and the slow lane further on.

Zambia

It also makes you stick out like dogs balls in a cattery. This could easily have backfired on them.

charlemont

Zambia wrote: »

It also makes you stick out like dogs balls in in cattery. This could easily have backfired on them.

True but then again the only viable escape road they could take going northbound is fairly close 3Km, But they would have to get to that road before they meet responding Garda cars from Douglas station going southbound.

MagicSean

Incidents like this and the one about the man who took the 3 children earlier this week make me wonder if we should have an emergency broadcast channel to ask for the publics help in locating vehicles involved in major crimes.

Corruptable

MagicSean wrote: »

Incidents like this and the one about the man who took the 3 children earlier this week make me wonder if we should have an emergency broadcast channel to ask for the publics help in locating vehicles involved in major crimes.

We used to have the radio scanner back when AGS was still on VHF, even though it admittedly was used for more bad than good purposes. Although when I used to have one, I'd keep an eye out for those who gardai were looking to phone it in if spotted on the pretext of suspicious activity.

It would be a good idea, but it would probably never been implemented, although it'd be relative easy using twitter and linking in with major radio stations.

kub

charlemont wrote: »

True but then again the only viable escape road they could take going northbound is fairly close 3Km, But they would have to get to that road before they meet responding Garda cars from Douglas station going southbound.

AGS do not operate like the Fire Service, granted Douglas is the next closest station to that site after Carrigaline, it is not as if the lads were sitting inside waiting on a call.
Chances are they could have gone up Maryborough Hill out of Douglas or any of the hills off the Rochestown Road, depending of course on where exactly both marked and unmarked cars were at that particular time.

Also this was a major type crime, so I would imagine all mobile units on the south side of the city were informed of this.

I do find it strange though as you say that they chose to use the N28, especially considering the time of day and the known fact that this is a very busy route. Also knowing this route fairly well, they would have had to travel along a narrow two way section without hard shoulders for approx 2 km in heavy traffic.
Consider as well, the responding units would probably have been on the opposite side of that very road.
Just a pity the RSU lads did not meet these boyos on their way.

hobbitt

MagicSean wrote: »

Incidents like this and the one about the man who took the 3 children earlier this week make me wonder if we should have an emergency broadcast channel to ask for the publics help in locating vehicles involved in major crimes.

There is such a service already there - TA (traffic announcement) on every car stereo. It automatically retunes the radio to the traffic or emmergency announcement, when its finished, the radio is automatically tuned back.

The Radio Stations all have this switch, but dont use it.

I asked RTE about it and was told "our advertisers wouldnt like it bacause they might prefer listening to CD's and only use us for the traffic info.

It should be mandatory for all radio stations to use this service

hobbitt

hobbitt wrote: »

There is such a service already there - TA (traffic announcement) on every car stereo. It automatically retunes the radio to the traffic or emmergency announcement, when its finished, the radio is automatically tuned back.

The Radio Stations all have this switch, but dont use it.

I asked RTE about it and was told "our advertisers wouldnt like it bacause listeners might prefer listening to CD's and only use us for the traffic info."

It should be mandatory for all radio stations to use this service

RTE borocracy gone mad?

msg11

hobbitt wrote: »

There is such a service already there - TA (traffic announcement) on every car stereo. It automatically retunes the radio to the traffic or emmergency announcement, when its finished, the radio is automatically tuned back.

The Radio Stations all have this switch, but dont use it.

I asked RTE about it and was told "our advertisers wouldnt like it bacause they might prefer listening to CD's and only use us for the traffic info.

It should be mandatory for all radio stations to use this service

TA is not automatically selected by the tuner, it has to be manually enabled.

There is a feature on all RDS transmitters (encoders), that if it is enabled in mode PTY31 it will automatically switch the radio over to which ever frequency the transmitter is transmitting on. It is reserved for emergency announcements, and this setting is not user inputted, the decoder has no choice but too switch over too it. But you would need too be pushing a fair bit of power, so RTE , FM104 or Spin pushing over 3000 Watts of power could do it. Also it would need to be pretty serious, I can't see other stations been too happy if it was switched on for something trivial. As chances are they will stick with which ever station has done it.

Shield

Back on topic please!

MagicSean

Could you clarify what the topic of the thread is? The op is just a news article.

Shield

MagicSean wrote: »

Could you clarify what the topic of the thread is? The op is just a news article.

Either discuss it or don't, but do not discuss moderator intervention on-thread. It's against the charter.

Back on topic please.

BrianD

hobbitt wrote: »

There is such a service already there - TA (traffic announcement) on every car stereo. It automatically retunes the radio to the traffic or emmergency announcement, when its finished, the radio is automatically tuned back.

The Radio Stations all have this switch, but dont use it.

I asked RTE about it and was told "our advertisers wouldnt like it bacause they might prefer listening to CD's and only use us for the traffic info.

It should be mandatory for all radio stations to use this service

The problem here is that most people don't know how it works. Consequently people who enabled it (on purpose or by accident) were complaining when the radio traffic announcements would cut in over CD they were playing or another station.

In any case the Traffic Announcements were only used for traffic bulletins so I can't see how it would help crime fighting. By the time, the message was communicated to the radio station and verified the bad guys would be gone.

Even the so called "national emergency broadcast" just relies on each station voicing an official message. This was supposed to be delivered by the INN satellite but this has closed since the first test run. Nobody quite explained that in the event of an emergency, how a station staff member would get to their station if there was a Garda cordon in the way.

BTW it's not the first time that the bad guys have mimiced a Garda vehicle. Didn't the IRA do it in Ballinamore (1983) after they shot dead a Garda and a soldier? Just driving with the hazards on did it back then.