Dublin gangsters on Friday staged the biggest cash robbery in the history of the Irish Republic, stealing up to 7 million euros (US$8.9 million) from the Bank of Ireland in Dublin’s College Green.
In what was is known as a Tiger kidnapping, an armed gang held the family of a bank official hostage at their County Kildare home on Thursday night before the raid in the early hours.
The method of hostage-taking and then making a bank employee go to his workplace and take a large sum of money out of it is similar to the audacious Irish Republican Army (IRA) raid on the headquarters of the Northern Bank in 2004.
PHOTO: AFP
Raiders usually threaten to the kill family members, as happened in the Northern Bank robbery, to compel the bank official to cooperate in the heist. In this latest event the gang forced their way into the home at Kilteel and took the bank worker’s partner, her mother and a seven-year-old child hostage.
The official, named last night as Shane Travers, was then forced to go the bank, which was the first Irish parliament back in the 18th century, across the road from Trinity College Dublin, and withdraw the cash. During the raid Travers’ partner was beaten and his family were then taken away in their car. Travers, who is in his 20s, was then forced to drive in his car from Kilteel to the bank. After withdrawing the money, he handed it over to the gang at the Clontarf DART suburban rail station in North Dublin. His family was then released in the Ashbourne area north of Dublin city. The raiders never entered the bank at all during the raid.
Security sources said last night that the chief suspect behind the robbery was a career criminal in his early 60s based in North County Dublin. He is currently out on bail on charges relating to other alleged criminal offenses. The sources said Travers and his girlfriend’s family were under surveillance for some time.
The last major cash robbery on a similar scale took place at a security firm depot near Dublin airport more than a decade ago. In that incident an organized Irish crime gang stole 4 million euros in cash. The largest cash robbery on the entire island remains the Northern Bank raid when the IRA stole up to £26 million (US$37.2 million) after holding the families of two bank officials hostage. The officials were then forced to hand over sacks filled with millions in cash to the IRA at the bank’s Belfast headquarters.
Although Friday’s raid in Dublin is a carbon copy of the IRA’s audacious robbery in Belfast, there is nothing to suggest there was any paramilitary involvement this time. Police are now appealing for information on the cars used in the incident, the bank official’s red Toyota Celica and the family’s dark Volkswagon Golf.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS