Daring Theft Of £62,500 Pay-Roll

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29992, 29 November 1962, Page 18

Daring Theft Of £62,500 Pay-Roll

(N Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, November 27. Pay-roll bandits—some masked and others disguised as city businessmen —escaped with £62,500 in a highly-organised wages grab at London Airport today.

The gang attacked a wages clerk and two security guards with iron bars in a 10-minute battle in a British Overseas Airways Corporation building. They grabbed the money in an iron box and made off in two 150 m.p.h. Jaguar racing cars. The money was wages for several thousand 8.0.A.C. staff at the airport. The security men had carried it into Comet House and rung for a lift. When it arrived eight bandits stepped out and attacked them. Two men—dressed in the London business man’s uniform of bowler hat, striped

trousers, black coats and brief cases—who had been strolling in front of the building for 15 minutes then joined the attackers. Lock Sawn Off Police said the gang had sawn off the lock of a disused exit gateway to the airport instead of making for the main entrance 200 yards away. All wore black masks. Police said the bandits jumped on the guards and the clerk and then coshed them.

The “Evening News” said the bandits used iron bars and other implements to cosh down the security guards and pay-roll clerk. Comet House is one ot the airline's airport buildings.

The two security men later were taken to hospital, one with a dislocated shoulder and the other with cuts to the head, the newspaper said. The “Evening News” said one of the Jaguars used in the get-away was later found abandoned at Hounslow, Middlesex. Hounslow is about 13 miles west of London and is near London Airport.