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Five guilty of Britain's biggest cash heist
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08:26, January 29, 2008

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Five men were found guilty on Monday at the Old Bailey of plotting the 53-million-pound (some 106 million U.S. dollars) Securitas robbery, Britain's biggest cash heist which took place in February 2006.

They have also been convicted over the kidnapping of the depot manager and his family who were told they would be killed if they resisted, Sky news reported.

Nigel Pilkington of the Crown Prosecution Service in Kent said: "Although a vast sum of money was stolen, this crime was at its heart a crime of violence. People's lives were put at risk."

According to him, it was a meticulously organized crime which took over a year for the robbers to plan their activity.

The five convicted aged between 26 to 35 and are due to be sentenced on Tuesday. Two other suspects were cleared of charges.

The gang got away with what was described as a "king's ransom" in cash but left behind 153 million pounds (some 306 million dollars) because they could not fit any more into their lorry.

After the robbery, police recovered 21 million pounds of the stolen money at sites in Kent and south east London, with much of the rest thought to have been spirited away to Morocco and northern Cyprus, some of it turned into assets.

The gang were provided with sophisticated prosthetic disguises, normally used in the world of theater and cinema, by hairdresser Michelle Hogg.

Hogg was initially in the dock alongside those who planned and carried out the robbery but agreed to become the star prosecution witness when all charges against her were dropped, said the report.

She is now in the witness protection scheme and says she is living in fear.

The total cost of the investigation and trial is estimated at 16 million pounds (about 32 million dollars).

Source: Xinhua



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