Northern Bank Robbery

mike65

Any thoughts? Apart from wow, thats a lorra lorra lolly?

Given its length and complexity one can't help but suspect well oiled paramilitary group with some help from the inside. The PSNI are refraining from guessing understandably but if it should be a terror group or ppl with connections to interested parties in the peace process one wonders what the fall out might be.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4117219.stm

Mike.

Agent Smith

it was a load of money,

question. if it turns out to be a loyalst group, would pasley step down?

De Hipster

agent smith wrote:

it was a load of money,

question. if it turns out to be a loyalst group, would pasley step down?

Why? His party has no 'official' paramilitary links.

daveirl

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Boggle

I know everyone reckons its a paramilitary group or something but aside from past experience I'm not sure how they come up with this. They reckoned on Prime Time that it must have been a gang of up to 25 people but in fairness - armed with the right kind of info, a gang of 5 or 6 people could have carried out the robbery.

And the info could have been gotten by sending some 'blond' up to any worker in a bar some night.... One of the workers ould even have been in on it!

De Hipster

daveirl wrote:

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I respect the man (not his politics necessarily), Northern Ireland would have had fewer people to bring humour to the situation otherwise.

dahamsta

mike65 wrote:

Any thoughts? Apart from wow, thats a lorra lorra lolly?

Guess who watched the Cilla special.

mike65

dahamsta wrote:

Guess who watched the Cilla special.

Not me guv! I guess her Professional Scouse ways have invaded my subconcious...

Mike.

ReefBreak

Don't be surprised if (former?) Republican and Loyalists terrorists were working together on this one. It wouldn't be the first time they've joined together for criminal activities.

Sand

They reckoned on Prime Time that it must have been a gang of up to 25 people but in fairness - armed with the right kind of info, a gang of 5 or 6 people could have carried out the robbery.

Very difficult - they had to hold two families hostage over a fairly long period of time and at the same time have enough guys to load the van with the cash, keep an eye out for trouble, watch the two executives to make sure they didnt run off, etc etc.

Don't be surprised if (former?) Republican and Loyalists terrorists were working together on this one. It wouldn't be the first time they've joined together for criminal activities.

It would be an interesting cross-community iniative alright.

thejollyrodger

Personally I would love to see the loyalists found the ones responsible for this and see what Pailsely says. Then it would be even better if a few days later the PSNI say its the provos.

Pasley would first say nothing much then call for an end of the peace process.

BCB

Without wanting to point the finger at anybody but personally i dont think any criminal element or any other paramilitary grouping barring the Provisional IRA would have the capability or sheer balls to carry out such an audacious robbery..inside information was the key here of that i have no doubt........

FTA69

daveirl wrote:

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UVF in 1966?
Ulster Resistance?
Third Force anyone?

Don't forget the fact that the DUP ally themselves to Loyalist death squads on parades commisions as well as the fact as marching side by side with UVF and UDA colour parties.

Hardly the actions of outright condemnation I'd say.

Our man in Havana

The Idiots stole 20+ million in new nothernn notes, which will be almost impossible to get rid of as they are no good outside of NI and the bank and the police know the serial numbers. Very clever indeed.

daveirl

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finlma

Bond-007 wrote:

The Idiots stole 20+ million in new nothernn notes

Hardly idiots. Smart guys I'd say. The fact that they organised a robbery of this magnitude means they have some plan to launder the cash. Its not that difficult to launder money with the right contacts.

I say all due respect to them. The banks rob from everyone of us every day and these guys were brave enough to pull a heist.

Expect to see Oceans 25 on your screens next Christmas.

AmenToThat

Bond-007 wrote:

The Idiots stole 20+ million in new nothernn notes, which will be almost impossible to get rid of as they are no good outside of NI and the bank and the police know the serial numbers. Very clever indeed.

Whatever you want to call them idiots they are not!
IF it was the provos they have a very sophisticated laundering operation throughout the island so Im sure they will be able to dispose of millions of the new notes within the six counties, considering the voulme of sales at thsi time of year they probably are as we speak

Kingsize

still its 22 million of one of the most difficult currencies to get rid of ,i couldnt even buy a burger with a NI £10 last time i was in England.& they used a getaway van so unique the police have yet to find a lookalike to show people???
There wasnt really that much to it & to be honest I reckon they will be caught.( unless of course theres police colllusion - surely no??)
I think there might have been paramiltary "muscle" involved for which they will recieve a hefty tribute payment.
But the whole thing seems a bit amateurish (or possibly insiderish )despite the massive haul.

The Muppet

Even if £12 million is traceable that still leaves at least £8 million that is not. That's still a considerable haul. Idiots ? I think not.

Hobbes

Kingsize wrote:

they used a getaway van so unique the police have yet to find a lookalike to show people???

Did it look like this? If so I think I know who did it.
...

As far as I can see they pulled it off pretty well. Laundering the money would of also been factored in.

BuffyBot

The banks rob from everyone of us every day and these guys were brave enough to pull a heist.

Of course, in the long run, the cost is passed on to the customer in some way or form - so yeah, that's a better deal for the customer...

Nuttzz

lol hobbes!

They should have done a southern bank there is a much better market to dispose euros in. I think someone saw the Money train episode of "The Shield" and thought theres an idea, Anytime I'm in England I always have hassle with NI notes, I'm sure they can sit on them for a while but its gone from about £1m a man to about £400k a man, bit of a bummer for them!

Villain

My gut feeling is breakaway Republicans, and I'm very concerned that if this turns out to be true, it will cause grave consequences for the peace Process.

Poker_Peter

They'll have to dump 2/3rds of it at least because they are brand new notes and they are therefore easier to track down and far harder to launder.

spongebob

I am hereby authorised to offer you all £50 notes for £6 each and £100 notes for £10 each seeing as you are interested. NI notes only, hard currency not available , sorry. Bulk discounts apply

Simply post your details in the thread below with your indicative offers and desired quantities.

Buyer collects .

M

marco murphy

If it was the provos theyll spread the money around.

The Muppet

Poblachtach wrote:

If it was the provos theyll spread the money around.

Aye happy days for luxury car dealers and builders.

MrPudding

daveirl wrote:

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You have obviously never tried to spend NI money outside of NI. It is almost impossible to spend it in England or Wales. You can have some success in Scotland, they are used to the concept of non Bank of England money as they have their own also.

I had to go to a bank once in Liverpool to change my NI note into BOE as nowhere would accept it. The cashier tried to charge me a foreign exchange commission.

I heard it said that the robbers were probably very surprised at the amount of cash in the vault, it is reckoned that they expected nowhere near that amount.

I would think that even 8 million will be fairly hard to launder in an area as small as NI. I am assuming the new notes are not worth the plastic they are printed on.

Boggle wrote:

I know everyone reckons its a paramilitary group or something but aside from past experience I'm not sure how they come up with this. They reckoned on Prime Time that it must have been a gang of up to 25 people but in fairness - armed with the right kind of info, a gang of 5 or 6 people could have carried out the robbery.

My understanding is that there was nearly 20 people involved in the kidnapping and hostage holding alone.

Paramilitaries are a convienient party to blame and are probably worth looking at by the PSNI. They tend to have lots of resources available, are reasonably good at keeping things quiet and some have experience with holding families hostage in order to get people to carry out tasks for them. Several car bombs were delivered in the past by men whose families where being held at gunpoint.

MrP

marco murphy

A Republicans House was raided and 16 pairs of shoes taken.(This Morning)

daveirl

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Hobbes

They had it on TV just now. A few houses raided in Republican areas. Chrissy presents opened as well. Sounds like harrassment to get a response.

They also mentioned on TV that NI bank might recall all currency and redesign it.

joe.

The PSNI searched the home of a leading republican on Christmas Eve as part of its attempt to recover the £22m stolen from the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast.

Eddie Copeland's house at Homedene Gardens in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast was searched by a forensic team who also carried out a search of his car and removed several items from his home.

Police also searched other commercial properties and homes in the north and west of Belfast.

Mr Copeland said police showed him a warrant which confirmed the raid was in connection with Monday's robbery.

He said he knew nothing about the robbery and could not understand why his home was raided.

Mr Copeland said the police took away 16 pairs of his shoes, mobile phones that were in the house, and he said detectives opened and searched presents under his Christmas tree.

Sinn Féin councillor Margaret McClenaghan said the raid on Mr Copeland's house was a disgrace. She said the police were only targeting republicans because they had not managed to make a breakthrough in the hunt for the robbers.

It is reported that police and Northern Bank have discussed the possibility of recalling every Northern Bank note to prevent the stolen money from being circulated.

The notes range from £5 to £100 denominations.

The Provisional IRA have denied any involvement in the robbery. The denial came after police refused to rule out paramilitary involvement in the heist.

mike65

daveirl wrote:

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The O'Marcos household was raided presumably...

Mike.

AmenToThat

Seems the PSNI informed the media in advance about some of those houses they were raiding to ensure that cameras captured the whole scene. Looks like there trying to pin it on the provos even though aparently they have no real leads so far
Dont get me wrong I reckon the provos are the only ones who could have carried it off but the way the PSNI and the media are handling it stinks as far as I can see

Dub13

Word going around is that this job was done by the Official IRA and not the Provos

Raskolnikov

daveirl wrote:

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I would assume that they have a footprint they found at the scene of the robbery. They'll probably cross-reference the shoes they took from Republican mans house with that of the footprint they found at the robbery.

If it turns out that the houses of the men who were raided are not involved with the crime I wouldn't blame Sinn Féin for not signing up to the PSNI.

Raskolnikov

Dub13 wrote:

Word going around is that this job was done by the Official IRA and not the Provos

If that's true (and I think it's highly unlikely) then Sinn Féin have commited political suicide.

Dub13

Raskolnikov wrote:

If that's true (and I think it's highly unlikely) then Sinn Féin have commited political suicide.

Sinn Féin have nothing to do with the official IRA

oscarBravo

finlma wrote:

I say all due respect to them. The banks rob from everyone of us every day and these guys were brave enough to pull a heist.

Endorsing grand larceny and kidnapping? Yeah, they're real heroes alright. What, you think these are Robin Hood figures? You think they're going to give the money to the bank's customers? Who do you think will foot this bill at the end of the day?

I mean, jaysus, what happened to morals?

marco murphy

Dub13 wrote:

Word going around is that this job was done by the Official IRA and not the Provos

Seriously doubt it.

Can i just say the robbers made either 2 runs or 4 runs with transporting the money.It took 45 mins to get back for the second,so it cant be too far outside belfast.

Officers were injured in a small riot,while searching somebodys house.

MrPudding

Raskolnikov wrote:

If it turns out that the houses of the men who were raided are not involved with the crime I wouldn't blame Sinn Féin for not signing up to the PSNI.

Why? Are the PSNI not allowed to make mistakes? Part of crime solving is finding evidence. Part of that is raiding the premises of suspects. They raided the houses with valid warrants. In order to get the warrants they would need some evidence. Oh no wait. This is the RUC they don't need evidence. They probably did this as part of their on going campaign of harassing innocent [strike]terrorists[/strike] freedom fighters.

The fact is police forces raid the house of people all the time as part of investigations. Sometime they are right and somtimes they are wrong. I appreciate that it is it a bit of / considerable hassle for the people invilved but that is life.

If Sinn Fein use this as an excuse to not sign up to the policing executive then that is bullsh1t. Why is it wrong only if a republican is a *victim* of a probably valid investigation?

MrP

Raskolnikov

MrPudding wrote:

Why? Are the PSNI not allowed to make mistakes? Part of crime solving is finding evidence. Part of that is raiding the premises of suspects. They raided the houses with valid warrants. In order to get the warrants they would need some evidence. Oh no wait. This is the RUC they don't need evidence. They probably did this as part of their on going campaign of harassing innocent [strike]terrorists[/strike] freedom fighters.

The fact is police forces raid the house of people all the time as part of investigations. Sometime they are right and somtimes they are wrong. I appreciate that it is it a bit of / considerable hassle for the people invilved but that is life.

So you accept that having some sort of evidence is needed in order to get a warrant to search anyones home? What if it turns out that Eddie Copeland had no involvement with the robbery. Will the PSNI then reveal what led them to the conclusion that Copeland was a possible suspect? Of course not, he was only targetted because his former links to the IRA (I saw former because he was ousted from the IRA by Robert Crawford). Not only that, but the man is hardly in a fit state to be preforming bank robberies. He's still wounded after being shot by a British soldier in 1993 (I'd like to add that he was unarmed and mourning the death of an IRA man in Shankill) and has also had his calf blown off in a car bomb attack.

If there is substantial evidence or proof that Copeland was involved with the robbery then I accept the raid was valid. Otherwise, it is victimisation.

MrPudding wrote:

Why is it wrong only if a republican is a *victim* of a probably valid investigation?

Sure why bother with an investigation at all if it's probably valid, lock him up :rolleyes:

MrPudding

Raskolnikov wrote:

He's still wounded after being shot by a British soldier in 1993 (I'd like to add that he was unarmed and mourning the death of an IRA man in Shankill) and has also had his calf blown off in a car bomb attack.

Yeah, my heart goes out to him. No seriously, it does. That was quite a sad funeral as well. Death by natural selection, it’s always tough. If only he had studied electronics a bit more vigorously, perhaps he would have been able to plant the bomb and only kill the innocent civilians. What of the rumours that our friend Eddie was the "mastermind" (I use that term most reservedly) behind the bombing his unfortunate friend died perpetrating? That aside, I do not support the state shooting people or punishing them without good reason or due process. I mention the stuff above not as a justification for him being shot while simply standing doing nothing, that was wrong, I mention as a good example of, sometimes, just sometimes, what goes around comes around. Also, I love irony.

Raskolnikov wrote:

If there is substantial evidence or proof that Copeland was involved with the robbery then I accept the raid was valid. Otherwise, it is victimisation.


Sure why bother with an investigation at all if it's probably valid, lock him up [img]file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C05%5Cclip_image001.gif[/img]

How do you propose they carry out the investigation? Do you have any idea how investigations are carried out? I don't really but I presume that they start with possible suspects and try to build a case and find evidence. This seems reasonable to me, of course due process must be followed.

You seem to think that unless they know for sure someone is guilty the police should leave them alone. I'm sure you have heard the term Usual Suspects. You may even have seen the movie. Apparently that is pretty much how things work. A crime "goes down" and the police start to "look at" people that might have, or are connected with people that may have some experience of that kind of crime.

Seems perfectly reasonable and logical to me.

If it turn out that he is simply an innocent ex-terrorist then fine. He is not the first innocent person to be questioned or have his house searched during the course of an investigation, I am sure he will not be the last. Why is he special? Should he not be a suspect as he is an ex-terrorist? Or is it cos he is still injured?


I used the term probably becuase I do not know if it is vaild. I assume that it is but I am not sure. I certainly do not believe that our model citizen should be lock up without due process being followed.


MrP

monument

Bond-007 wrote:

The Idiots stole 20+ million in new nothernn notes, which will be almost impossible to get rid of as they are no good outside of NI and the bank and the police know the serial numbers. Very clever indeed.

Yeah, they must have been idiots; they were breaking into the Northern Bank's Head Office in Belfast, so they must have been expecting large quantities of Yen, or Canadian Dollars. Oh, yeah, sure, they must have been surprised when they found large quantities of Northern Bank branded notes.

lomb

northern bank reakon they might withdraw all their notes in january. this would be very funny. the money will be worthless. hahahaha

FTA69

The Sticks???
Those geriatrics can hardly tie their own shoes never mind commit a knock-over of this magnitude!

I also doubt it was the IRA who carried out this raid, do people here really think the political ramifications if the IRA were caught would be worth the results of this robbery? Not a chance, it would destroy Sinn Féin both here and abroad.

It could have been the INLA, the UVF or even a gang of criminals, stranger things have happened.

marco murphy

FTA69 wrote:

The Sticks???
Those geriatrics can hardly tie their own shoes never mind commit a knock-over of this magnitude!

LOL!

Capt'n Midnight

MrPudding wrote:

Paramilitaries are a convienient party to blame and are probably worth looking at by the PSNI. They tend to have lots of resources available, are reasonably good at keeping things quiet and some have experience with holding families hostage in order to get people to carry out tasks for them. Several car bombs were delivered in the past by men whose families where being held at gunpoint.

Let us never forget what Proxy Bombs were people tied into car bombs and forced to commit suicide for the sake of their families. Any organisation that can use that tatic would have little scruples with anything else.

No I can't imagine a criminal gang trying this out in NI, just too many groups with guns out after you. No doubt at some stage there will be an OJ Simpson type announcement by one or more paramilitary group about they will vow to catch the real perpertrators.

Anyone know about the financial status of any of the groups in NI - be very interested to see if any of them get a windfall soon.

Does the currency change mean that NI will join the Euro soon ?

MrPudding

I don't think it is a currency change, just the notes themselves. They will still be GBPs. It would be soooo cool if they did move to € but I doubt if a bank can make the decision.

MrP

Redleslie2

mike65 wrote:

The O'Marcos household was raided presumably...

Mike.

Boards quip of the year reckons I.

Cork

POLICE in Northern Ireland have concluded that the IRA was almost certainly responsible for last week’s £22m (€31m) robbery of Northern Bank in Belfast.

Link

The conviction last month of Niall Binead, a Sinn Fein activist, by the Special Criminal Court illustrated once again the umbilical links between Sinn Fein and the IRA and also the republican movement’s continuing obsession with crime and espionage, north and south of the border.

Link

“You cannot be a criminal and a republican activist. You cannot be involved in any criminality and involved in republican activism,” Mr Adams said.

The SDLP rounded on Gerry Adams over his claim there can be no link between criminality and republican activism.

How does Adams and SF maintain that the IRA funds itself?

If the IRA wre involbed in the NI bank raid - It would be a massive blow to the Good Friday Agreement.