The gang of robbers gained entry to the warehouse from security guard Anthony Black. Once inside, they poured gasoline over staff and threatened to light them on fire if they did not give up the code to the vault. The robbers planned to steal £3.2 million in cash, but discovered the bullion, gold and diamonds when they gained entry. The inside information from Anthony Black also helped the robbers disarm a number of highly advanced security systems, but when the safe was opened they soon realized they had a completely different problem/fortune on their hands.
This was the tip-off call that is thought to have first linked Feberion to the Heathrow robbery in Mossack’s mind. This laundering chain rapidly generated millions in cash. At one point, extra deliveries of new £50 notes were made to a Barclays branch in Bristol to cope with increased demand for cash withdrawals.
Led by Black’s brother-in-law, Brian Robinson, and Trilby-clad Micky McAvoy, the gang rounded up the guards, tied them up and poured petrol over them, threatening to light them with a match if they didn’t comply. Thanks to Black, they were able to identify the two most senior guards who, between them, held the keys and combination numbers for the vault where three safes were located. X” walked into Kerry Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press building and jimmied open two doors with either a crowbar or screwdriver.
Nazi Germany Gold Plunder (1939
On 30 September 1984, less than a year after the Brink’s-Mat robbery, the banking and gold-trading arm of Johnson Matthey collapsed and was taken over by the Bank of England to protect the integrity of the London gold markets. The bank had made very large loans to fraudsters and insolvent businesses over several years, and had serious and unexplained gaps in its records. The fraud squad was called in to investigate the bank and certain customers. Much of the three tonnes of stolen gold has never been recovered and the other four robbers were never convicted. In 1996 about half of the gold, the portion which had been melted and recast, was thought to have found its way back into the legitimate gold market, including the reserves of the true owners, Johnson Matthey. According to the BBC, some have claimed that anyone wearing gold jewellery bought in the UK after 1983 is probably wearing Brink’s-Mat. In January 1995, the High Court ordered McAvoy to make a payment of £27,488,299, making him responsible for the entire sum stolen.
“He’s at the top of the tree of armed robbers.” Police revealed they took their “most extreme package of security measures” for the robbers’ trial. He was sentenced to life in prison and will have to serve a minimum of 11 years before being considered for parole.
The Summer Bliss Robbery (
Noye was found guilty of conspiracy to handle the Brink’s-Mat gold, fined £500,000 – plus £200,000 costs, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. George Francis was murdered and McAvoy was thought to be a suspect.
- One of the officers who interviewed Noye after his arrest was Det Chief Supt Brian Boyce.
- Meanwhile, at least half a dozen killings – including the 1985 stabbing of an undercover police officer – have been connected to the band of criminals who battled among themselves for decades for control of the bullion.
- Faxes, memos and company filings from deep in the firm’s archives show how, in the late 1980s, Jürgen Mossack played a vital role in advising – unwittingly at first – fugitive money launderer Gordon Parry.
- Noye went to visit Nadir in Northern Cyprus on a number of occasions.
‘One by one those originally involved have been being picked off like targets in a funfair shooting gallery,’ says one of the police detectives involved in the original investigation. Only one third of the bullion has been recovered and the case remains open. They even knew which of the two security guards had the combination numbers for the safes inside. It was pitch black and icy cold when security guard Richard Holliday arrived to open Unit 7 on a scruffy trading estate near Heathrow Airport. Inside this nondescript warehouse was one of Britain’s biggest secure vaults, used to store currency, precious metals and other high-value consignments. Four colleagues joined him, but the fifth man rostered for duty, 31-year-old Tony Black, was late and when he finally showed up he looked pale, unkempt and worried.
Nick Whiting, a car dealer, went missing from his showroom in West Kingsdown in 1990. His body was later recovered on Rainham Marshes, in Essex. Such was the bonhomie that after Noye’s release he was visited by two prison officers escorting another prisoner, a friend of Noye’s Derek Kandler, to a weight lifting competition. One of the officers who interviewed Noye after his arrest was Det Chief Supt Brian Boyce. Although not a freemason Mr Boyce greeted Noye with a masonic handshake to put him at ease. Noye offered Mr Boyce £1m to ensure he did not go to prison. Making money, in however petty a way, remained his obsession.
Nahome was said to have been involved in the smelting and laundering of the stolen gold. He was a key financial adviser to the feared north London Adams crime family. JOHN FORDHAM – Undercover policeman who was stabbed to death in 1985 by Kenneth Noye. Since the robbery quite a few of the ‘firm’ have met untimely or suspicious ends. This includes at least three members of the Brink’s-Mat gang, still active after all these years.
Gold
It was rumoured that McAvoy had bought two Rottweiler dogs to protect his new home and named them ‘Brinks’ and ‘Mat’. He was later jailed for his part in a drug smuggling ring. When the robbers gained access, they were greeted with a sight usually reserved for heist movies. The cash was no longer the focus of their operation – the warehouse was storing more than three tonnes of gold bullion.
He had originally been arrested after stabbing a former work colleague to death and cutting his body into pieces. When the body was first discovered it led to the case being known as the Jigsaw Murder. The murder of a witness in the Noye road-rage case in October 2000 left another bloody mark and told those that needed to be reminded that even in prison some criminals have power.
Thousands Of Londoners To Trial ‘do
The Brink’s-Mat villains’ epic conversion of gold into cash brought more money into this country than any other gang of criminals in history. The sheer size of the Brink’s-Mat haul of gold bullion had created a huge problem because the gang needed a conduit through which the gold could travel.
From 1994 to 1997, five more gangland deaths were attributed in some way to Brink’s-Mat. In April 1990, he paid the price when a young British hood knocked on the front door of his hacienda north of Marbella and shot Wilson and his pet husky dog before coolly riding off down the hill on a yellow bicycle. One of them, Charlie Wilson, found himself in trouble when £3 million of Brink’s-Mat investors’ money went missing in a drug deal. It was known that he had encountered Noye and his associates.
Noye melted down the bullion and recast it for sale, mixing in copper coins to disguise the source. However, the sudden movement of large amounts of money through a Bristol bank was noticed by the Bank of England, so the authorities were alerted. Three years after the robbery Perry was arrested for his role in trying to smelt the gold. During his trial a threatening letter to Perry emerged warning that he would be ‘signing his own death warrant’ if he believed that the robbers would be in prison so long that he had nothing to worry about. Until the Brinks-Mat job, London’s underworld had been a strictly cash business. No one within the robbers’ immediate circle had any experience of dealing with gold and the desire to turn the bullion into hard cash meant the call for help had to be put out far and wide. The 1983 dawn heist had involved masked gunmen terrifying security staff into giving up vault combination numbers by dousing their genitals in petrol and threatening to set them alight.
Brinks Mat Robber’s Nephew Among Dangerous Gang Jailed
However, In 1996, Noye murdered a motorist named Stephen Cameron during a road rage incident. Arrested in Spain and extradited, he was convicted of Cameron’s murder in 2000, and received a life sentence.
Three suspects were arrested, all logistics workers from the airport itself. There is an ongoing investigation into the gold heist and as of yet, no one has been charged. On February 10, 1983, two masked gunmen stole gold bullion estimated to be worth up to $11 million from Golden Door Jewelry Creations, a large gold smelting company and jewelry wholesaler based in North Miami, Florida. The two bandits wearing nylon stockings over their heads burst into the jewelry wholesalers, tied up the owner and two other employees and got away with a whopping 736kg of gold bars, spools, chains, and jewelry.
Sells used cars, lives in Kent.JOHN LLOYD Fled to US after bid to arrest him for handling pounds 17.3m. Lives in Kent.GEORGE FRANCIS Second of gang to be gunned down. In May this year he was shot dead as he sat in his Rover 75 outside his own courier firm.
The robbers seemed to know their way around and easily disabled the sophisticated security system. The few guards on duty were tied up, doused with petrol and threatened with being set alight unless they revealed the combinations to the final locks.
