Aughnacloy cash in transit van ATM robbery gang could have got £1m says former head of PSNI Organised Crime
A former head of PSNI Organised Crime says reports that a gang stole £1m from a cash-in-transit van in Aughnacloy are very possible - and that he can't recall the last such robbery on that scale.
Police got a report at 6.40am today (Wednesday) that a gang wearing boiler suits and masks and armed with suspected firearms, threatened security staff who had been attending a cash machine at a business on the Caledon Road in Aughnacloy.
Detective Inspector McCamley said: “All information relating to this armed robbery is needed. This would have been a shocking experience for the staff involved. This masked group had ordered staff into the ATM [Automated Teller Machine] bunker then removed cash boxes from the security van and the cash machine. “They then made off from the scene in the direction of Armagh in a dark-coloured Audi Q7 with a significant sum of cash. As part of our enquiries, we are liaising with An Garda Síochána." Police appealed for information on any suspicious behaviour in the area - and for local dash-cam footage or doorbell footage, on Tel 101 quoting 191-08/10/25.
Neither police nor Pivotal Sec Plus, which owned the van, commented on BBC claims that £1m was stolen.
Roy McComb, a former head of the PSNI Organised Crime Branch, says it is very possible the van could have carried £1m, as even a single ATM can comfortably hold a six figure sum.
It is unusual in such cases that a gang gets access to the inside of the cash delivery van, he said.
The last similar gang his PSNI team put away was 10-15 years ago - but they usually got only £20-40,000 at a time from cash boxes.
"But the big prize, which is what happened here - is getting inside the van. I'm trying to remember the last time anyone managed to do that and nothing springs to mind."
The gang could be either from the south or the north.
"They may have fled across the border to avoid a "hot pursuit" by the PSNI and stayed there for a while to do "a forensic clean up" before coming back to Northern Ireland.
They will be experienced and sophisticated armed robbers who have reached "the upper tiers of criminality".
It is unlikely they will be living "lives of quiet sophistication" but will be known by police to be involved "in all types of criminality" as well as "habitual drug use" - because they want to spend their money.
Such gangs normally do not hold down jobs when they handle so much cash.
They could well have families who are benefitting with glamorous holidays and "turkey teeth".
Police investigations will look at similar crimes over recent months or years to stop their next job, he said.
Local DUP councillor Mark Robinson had heard the van had come from Belfast and that Aughnacloy was its first delivery.
He suspects the gang chose to hit the van in Aughnacloy because it is right on the border.
He believes they likely fled south to avoid the PSNI.
"A lot of people are wondering how they got a van with that much money at the right time just on the border."
"We are shocked to hear they may have got a million pounds."