'Brilliant’ plan leads to $15 million cash

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 9

'Brilliant’ plan leads to $15 million cash

NZPA-Reuter Paris Gunmen who snatched more than 70 million francs ($15.81 million) in an elaborate raid on the Brinks cash transport and storage company had staged the biggest robbery in France in over a decade, the police said yesterday. Working in two groups of four to five men each, the gunmen made the attack with an intricate and wellprepared plan that took nine hours to complete and caused no bloodshed. One group of masked and heavily-armed men seized a senior Brinks driver in his home south of Paris late in the evening, took his wife hostage and then drove the man to a company strongroom northwest of the city. According to police sources, a second group stood by 30 kilometres away, north of Paris, maintaining contact by walkietalkie. When the Brinks driver failed to open the company door with his key, the second group was told

to storm the home of another Brinks employee. Holding one of his family at gunpoint, they drove him to the strongroom. The gunmen opened the strongroom doors, overpowered the guards and got away in a van with more than 70 million francs, most of it in cash. They then gave the signal to release the hostages. Describing the robbery as brilliantly planned, the police said the gunmen probably had inside information. The theft was timed for the end of the week-end after the arrival of Saturday receipts from big suburban supermarkets. The strongroom alarm also had been disconnected for a few days for reasons that were still unclear, the police said. The raid, the police said, signalled a new trend in France to attack cash transport carriers rather than banks. Eight attacks on carriers have been made in France

since the start of the year, some of them with weapons such as bazookas or magnetic mines. Three transport guards have been killed in the robberies and 16.2 million francs ($2.1 million) have been stolen. Brinks has been the butt of many attacks. The first and most famous in the United States occurred in 1950 when New England thieves escaped with SUS2.B million ($4.92 million) in Boston. In recent years, the company has been a target of radical groups from both ends of the political spectrum. The bloodiest attack was in 1981 when Leftists seized SUSI. 6 ($2.8 million) and killed two policemen and a Brinks guard in the United States. In April, 24 members of the Right-wing Order of the Silent Brotherhood were indicted for crimes including a SUS 3.6 million ($6.32 million) Brinks robbery near Ukiah, California, in 1984.