From: "Tim Jeffreys", [EMAIL PROTECTED] This jolly piece was in the current edition of Punch (Feb 14-27, 2001): Tim : ) ------------------------------------------- Titled: BritainÆs gun-slingers are back on the streets The increasing violence of drug dealing is driving some criminals back to their roots - Sweeney-style smash-and-grab robberies. Dan Adams reports ------------------------ At 7:30am a brown and white speedboat breaks the early morning calm of the River Medway in Kent. The boat's driver shuts off the engine and quietly moors at the river. bank at Aylesford, near Maidstone. With in seconds, a lorry with three passengers draws up on the bank nearby. Loaded on the back of the truck is a huge metal spike covered in a tarpaulin. Minutes later, the truck turns into a nearby industrial estate and rams a Securicor van is it begins payroll deliveries. The gang had planned to use the spike to bore a hole in the security van doors and then blow it open with explosives, but the hole is too small and the explosives fall off on impact. The sound of the robbers firing guns into the air and screaming at the guards alerts families living nearby who call the police. The gang members run 200 yards to the river bank where they make their getaway in the waiting speedboat which is soon hitting 4Omph on the Medway. One mile up-river they abandon the vessel and switch to a car that smashes into at least one parked vehicle as it careers off into the Kent countryside. Behind them, the robbers leave a catalogue of incriminating evidence, including a number of detonators beneath the van's wheels, cutting equipment, sledgehammers and the lorry with the fearsome spike. It reads like an episode of the popular Seventies TV series The Sweeney, except that this was for real - it took place last July and the villains got away scot-free. The attempted Securicor raid struck an ominous cord with detectives and police fear that some of the most notorious bank-robbery gangs of the Seventies and early Eighties are back on our streets. Just a few months earlier, there had been another similar type of raid, which Also failed. outside the Securicor headquarters in Nine Elms, next to the Thames in London's Vauxhall. A five-man gang carrying hand-guns, all dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, boxed in a Securicor van with a flatbed lorry, a white van and a BMW. The gang even jack-knifed three articulated lorries across access routes to hinder police cars. Their attempt to ram the security van with a massive girder on the back of another lorry failed because a motorist was so angered by the situation that he took the keys out of the ignition of one of the blocking vehicles. Thinking it was the police, the gang fled on foot to the Thames, where they jumped into a boat moored at a wharf at Battersea Power Station and escaped. "These teams are operating like sonic of the old braggers," explained one detective. "It's bloody ominous because we donÆt want these sort of crimes back on the streets." Senior officers believe these and at least three other such robberies have been financed by wealthy criminals who are trying to take a step back from the highly risky narcotics trade. Scotland Yard's most seasoned thief-takers reckon such raids are a throwback to the "bash and crash" gangs that became almost extinct following the advance of sophisticated security methods and the lure of huge profits from drugs. "It's a fuckin' war out there," says former South-East London cannabis smuggler Gordon McShane. "Some of these drug barons have a turnover that would put a Third World country to shame, and if anyone double-crosses them, they're dead. Once you start working for the big drug lords they own you lock, stock and barrel and it's almost impossible to get out because they don't want to risk you turning them over to the police. It's not surprising some old-time villains have decided to go back to what they do best." And one senior detective in the Met says: "The drugs underworld is a dangerous place to operate. We're getting an average of probably one hitman killing a month in London and the Home Counties at the moment and some of the old gangsters are losing their bottle. They're getting nostalgic about the good old days when they'd put up the cash for a team to rob a security van of a couple of hundred grand. Everyone gets their share and that would be the end of it." It's well known that vast multi-million pound drug deals took over from armed robbery as the main source of income for London gangsters 15 years ago. So when these raids started early last year police were baffled. Rumours then began circulating in South-East London that certain old-school villains were turning their backs on dealing in drugs because of the number of hits being commissioned by drug barons. Gordon MeShane says: "One particular drug baron was having blokes plugged [killed] for really petty reasons and it put the wind up many of his rivals who wanted to avoid an all-out war." Now some of the countryÆs richest and most powerful criminals are out recruiting retired robbers to form gangs of professional braggers which are capable of mounting heists on everything from high-street banks to multi-million pound cash deliveries by security vans. Police genuinely fear that the streets of London and the Home Counties are on the verge of turning into the Wild West, as gun-toting villains try to recreate some of their most legendary stick-ups of decades past. The Met already has a dirty-dozen list of top villains it believes are financing these teams of robbers to carry out their orders. Some of the best known "braggers" are even being lured out of semi-retirement in Spain to travel back to England, carry out a robbery and then pop on the next plane back to the Costa del Sol. One such villain, whom we'll call "Charlie", has been living in Spain since 1981 but admitted to me recently: "I'm getting bored out here and I've told a few old mates I'd certainly be prepared to pop back for a job if the right sort of money was available." Charlie says that he and many of the so-called old-timers would also come out of retirement partly because they miss the adrenaline fix of committing such "daring" crimes. "Some of these fellows miss all the action, so it wouldn't exactly be difficult to get them on a team." During the Seventies and early Eighties, the Met's Flying Squad were confronting such robbers on virtually a weekly basis in dramatic face-offs that actually provided much of the raw material for the adventures in TV's The Sweeney. Some police officers even managed to infiltrate these gangs and there were dozens of informants leaking vital information to police. But new, tougher rules on the "running" of police informants has made it much more difficult for detectives to get beneath the surface of these newly formed gangs of robbers. "It's a bloody nightmare. The cozzers are trying to turn everyone over because they want to nip these robberies in the bud," explains McShane. "But those old-fashioned snouts are long gone." As one detective says: "Crime is booming because drugs are being used by so many people. But with all these vast sums of money comes a much more cold-blooded approach to crime and corruption. Some of these old-style bank robbers see themselves as Robin Hoods simply out to feed their starving families. But the fact is they still use guns and wouldn't hesitate to use them if someone got in their way." Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________________________ T O P I C A -- Learn More. Surf Less. Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Topics You Choose. http://www.topica.com/partner/tag01
