‘A crime of the past’: How bank robbers who tried to steal £8,000,000 were stopped at the final hurdle

It’s almost 50 years since one of the world’s largest ever bank heists in Mayfair, when robbers ransacked a whopping £8 million from Bank of America.

Then the largest bank burglary ever, the Bank of America heist of 1975 has gone down in history – and the man behind the masterplan is still on the loose.

When the bank employed Stuart Buckley as an electrician at their Mayfair branch in the early 1970s, they had no idea it would cost them £7.5 million.

Buckley had just finished a nine-month term in prison for handling stolen goods – something bosses failed to check – and was looking for a job to restore some normality to his life when he landed the gig at the bank.

The electrician was afforded keys to the building after earning the trust of his superiors – which prompted Buckley to organise a drink with old friend and hardened criminal Frank Maple in a South London boozer.

Buckley was ‘the perfect inside man’, and Maple dully put together a gang of criminals ready to attempt the audacious robbery.

The gang of eight men planned to ransack the bank’s vault of millions of pounds but had to solve one problem in order to do so – it’s passcode.

Buckley was tasked with finding out the treasured information.

Sandwiched in the ceiling above the vault, the electrician peered through floorboards until the bank’s manager appeared, inadvertently revealing exactly what the robbers wanted.

The day of reckoning was here, with keys in-hand and the vault’s passcode engrained in their minds, the eight men dressed in business suits strolled into Bank of America shortly after 6pm on April 24^th, 1975.

Within a matter of minutes, the gang had opened the vault and were bagging up £8 million worth of cash, jewellery and other valuable items before fleeing the scene.

With newspaper coverage of the robbery being so extensive, Scotland Yard began an investigation in order to discover the burglary’s culprits immediately.

It didn’t take police long to uncover the robbers, with detectives having actually been keeping tabs on Maple and his gang for weeks before the heist thanks to a tip-off.

Stuart Buckley, the criminal who had inspired the robbery, too brought about the demise of his co-conspirators as he turned informant following his arrest.

Buckley told all, and the gang received jail terms totalling nearly 100 years, with safe-cracker Leonard Wilde put away for 23 years and Peter Colson going down for 21. Buckley was handed seven years for co-operating.

Frank Maple though, the gang’s leader, fled Britain soon after the robbery and was never caught. The criminal is believed to be in hiding in Morocco, Africa – a country with no extradition treaty with the UK.

Cops only ever recovered £500,000 of the £8 million stolen.

Thrilling heists like Maple and co’s audacious robbery in 1975 are becoming increasingly rare, however. Howard Sounes, a crime expert who wrote the book Heist, even called bank robberies ‘a crime of the past.’

He continued: ‘You see far less large-scale robberies these days because there’s less paper money. We use credit cards and electronic banking so cash isn’t as prevalent as it once was.

‘It’s a big risk to steal cash, and if you’ve stolen millions of pounds, it’s pretty hard to spend it.

‘Today’s equivalent of a heist is electronic fraud, it’s internet fraud on a massive scale – which isn’t as sexy for films, books and newspapers.

‘The reason people want to read about bank heists is because they’re dramatic, they’re intriguing. Internet banking isn’t so interesting.’

Here, Metro takes a look back on some of the most ‘dramatic’ robberies in British history.

The Great Train robbery, 1963

Arguably the UK’s most famous ever heist, the Great Train robbery took place more than 50 years ago and it was almost an outright success.

A group of 17 men planned to rob a train headed from Glasgow to London carrying nearly £3 million in its high-value package carriage.

Robbers stopped the locomotive at a red-light signal in Buckinghamshire, forcing the driver to redirect the train half a mile along to a bridge. At the destination, the crew ransacked the desired carriage, stealing nearly £2.6 million in cash before dashing away.

The gang were only caught after their hideout at Leatherslade farm was searched by police a few days later. Robbers had originally asked one of their members to torch the farm, but the chosen man took his £10,000 of the loot and never did what was asked of him.

Four of the crew managed to avoid arrest, with the other 13 taken down.

Baker Street robbery, 1971

After formulating a plan like something you’d see in a movie, robbers stole millions from Baker Street’s Lloyds Bank in the most extraordinary way.

A crew of heisters rented a leather goods store a couple of doors down from the bank and dug holes on weekends heading towards its vault of cash.

On the decisive day, burglars set off explosives to blow a hole in the vault for them to climb through before bagging up more than £3 million.

And, unusually, only one of the crew was ever caught.

What’s particularly interesting though, was that the alleged leader of the Baker Street heist was also the man in charge of another major robbery on our list… but more on that later.

The Brinks-Mat robbery, 1983

The UK’s second biggest heist ever saw six conspirators steal £26 million from a Heathrow trading estate.

On November 26^th, 1983, six men broke into the Brinks-Mat warehouse on the estate and poured petrol over all of its staff, threatening to set them alight if they refused to reveal the combination to the vault.

Petrified workers obliged, and the gang ran away with £3.2 million in cash, three tonnes of gold bullion and diamonds.

In an attempt to hide their stolen goods, the crew melted the three tonnes of gold, mixed it with copper and resold it to the market – and it worked.

Just two of the crew were ever caught, with the other four conspirators running free to enjoy their fortune.

So, you never know, that golden necklace you put on in the morning could be made from material stolen from Brinks-Mat.

Securitas depot (Tonbridge) robbery, 2006

The largest ever cash-only robbery in the UK occurred in 2006 in Tonbridge, Kent.

On 21^st February, the manager of the depot, Colin Dixon, was pulled over by what he assumed was an unmarked police car which he was taken into for questioning.

As he entered the vehicle, a man dressed in a police uniform held Mr Dixon at gunpoint before transporting him to a farm to be held hostage.  

The gang then visited the manager’s wife and 8-year-old son, luring them into the vehicle before holding them hostage with Mr Dixon, who was told he must co-operate if he wanted to live.

The next day, the family were taken to the depot where they found 14 staff detained by gunmen wearing balaclavas. The criminals filled a lorry with £53 million in banknotes, leaving a whole £154 million as they couldn’t fit in anymore.

Imagine that, a whole lorry full of cash.

The robbery led to a string of arrests though, with 36 people put behind bars including the crew’s two leaders.

Hatton Gardens heist, 2015

The Hatton Gardens heist is arguably the most shocking included in our list, largely for the reason that the average age of the robbers was 64.

On April 2^nd, 2015, a crew of seven broke into the Hatton Gardens building and stole more than £14 million.

Interestingly, the clan’s oldest member, 76-year-old Brian Reader, was also rumoured to have spearheaded the earlier mentioned Baker Street heist. The gangster was believed to be ‘one of the busiest crooks in the British underworld.’

The gang drilled through thick walls in order to enter the building’s safety deposit and spent the following two days emptying 72 safety deposit boxes ready to be transported away in a van.

However, most of the crew were arrested and sentenced to a combined total of nearly 50 years. The robbers were also ordered to payback £27.5 million or face extra terms in jail.

To this day, only £732,000 has been returned.

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