On Tuesday 21st December 2004 the people of Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Ireland awoke to news of the largest ever cash bank robbery in UK history. The enquiry has been far-reaching travelling from Belfast, throughout Northern Ireland to Eire and Bulgaria. It is unlikely that the entire truth will ever emerge.

Background

The Northern Bank is one of Northern Ireland's 'Big Four' and as such can produce banknotes bearing their own design. These bank notes are sterling, but only in general use in Northern Ireland, parts of Scotland and some tourist centres in Europe. The bank is a subsidiary of the National Austrailia Bank and its headquarters are used as a clearing bank and depository. The bank headquarters are situated in Belfast city centre and look out upon the Cenotaph in the grounds of Belfast City Hall.

On Monday 20th December the bank was housing an unusually large amount of money for use in ATMs. This was for the big spend in the run up to Christmas, and most of the money was uninsured. One of the biggest robberies in British history was about to empty the vaults of a reported £26.5 million.

The Heist

Sunday

On Sunday 19th December the operation began with the abduction of a bank official from his home in West Belfast. Chris Ward's family were held hostage at his home under armed guard while he was driven to his supervisors home in Downpatrick.

Ward's supervisor, Kevin McMullan and his wife were already being held bound and gagged when Chris Ward and his captors arrived. Later that evening Mrs McMullan was taken, blindfolded, from the house and held at an unknown location.

Monday

On Monday morning Kevin McMullan and Chris Ward were taken to report for work as normal in bank headquarters, where they worked in the basement of the building at the cash centre.

The two men carried out their duties as normal throughout the day but when the bank emptied they remained at thier posts. In the early evening one of the employees left the building, briefly, carrying a holdall containing £1 million. The holdall was passed to another man in what was thought to be a trial run for the main event.

At around 7.00pm a white box van arrived at the side entrance of the bank where it was loaded with crates of cash prepared by the bank employees. One hour later the van returned for a second run and made off towards the main motorway links having collected some £26.5 million.

Shorty before midnight Mrs McMullan, who had been released by the gang in the remote Drumdeeragh Forest Park, found her way to a house to raise the alarm.

Tuesday

The counting had begun in an attempt to quantify the loss of self-insured new and used bank notes. The Police Service of Northern Ireland were looking at the 'usual suspects', the local paramilitaries, and the political fallout was just beginning. The haul consisted of £10.5 million of unissued Northern Bank notes, £5.5 million of used Northern Bank notes and £4.5 million of other local bank notes, the remainder comprised mainly of Euros and US Dollars.

The Fallout

The organisation involved in such an audacious robbery meant that the finger was very quickly pointed at the only grouping with the capability and manpower - the Provisional Irish Republican Army or PIRA. The organisation denied the allegations outright, but the political fallout was swift.

The PIRA's political wing Sinn Fein had only weeks before been involved in talks with a view to resume the local assembly at Stormont. These ambitions were ruled out entirely for the forseeable future because the robbery was just the latest in a long line of breaches of the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.

£26.5 Million Headache

£1 million can be moved in a suitcase with relative ease, £26.5 million requires a large van, therefore, the problems facing those involved began almost right away. The robbery was thought to have been too ambitious as the amount of money would be icredibly hard to launder and almost impossible to use.

To make matters worse, the Northern Bank immediately announced that they would be recalling all of their notes in circulation valued at £10 or above(£5 notes were left in circulation including the collectable millenium £5). The people of Northern Ireland are well known for holding large amounts of cash 'under the bed' so this caused quite a few headaches within the community at large as they tried to spend or lodge their savings at various banks. The bank eventually recalled some £300 million and reissued with a different design and new colour. This begged the question - What do you do with some £16 million of unusable bank notes?

It transpired, that some of the notes were burned, some £50,000 dumped at a Belfast country club, and £2.5 million recovered in Eire, some were even used to buy Christmas presents, but the bulk of the haul was left in storage until a suitable solution could be found.

Ironically, plans for the remaining money are believed to have included the purchase of a small bank, a quarry and a £15 million apartment complex all in Bulgaria, which would provide the PIRA an international money laundering opportunity.