‘How many of you are there in here?’ snarled one of the gang, through the hole in his balaclava.
‘Just me,’ came Counsell’s shaking reply.
‘Don’t fucking lie to us!’ shouted another voice from behind them. It was hard to believe, but Counsell was telling the truth: there was, in fact, just one guard on duty.
With the preliminaries successfully completed, the gang now had to wait several hours for the timer to release some of the locking mechanisms on three of the main underground vaults. After that, it would require the ‘cooperation’ of several guards holding passwords and keys before the vaults could be opened. A further seven employees were due to arrive during the course of the afternoon and they would have to be taken care of one by one and ‘cooperate’ fully with the Firm.
The second employee to arrive that day came in soon after 1pm. Counsell was told to sit at his desk and not even look at the man. A flicker of the eye, one little mistake, and he could give away the whole game. One of the Firm lay concealed under his desk, poking a shotgun into Counsell’s bollocks to persuade him he should follow their advice.
One by one, the guards were wrapped up with women’s stockings and a plaster put over their mouths and, by 2pm, all staff had been accounted for. The task of waiting for them had been long and arduous and required strong nerves. The Firm could not afford to make a single mistake.
Now came the delicate task of opening the vaults without setting off alarms. When turning a lock, it had to be opened in a prescribed sequence. One wrong turn and the bells would ring. Keys also had to be put into locks in the right sequence. It would require the ‘cooperation’ of two members of staff, each of whom held a required key. With time on their hands, the Firm were able to rehearse the lock-opening procedure with the guards to make sure they were not given wrong information. The guards were told to repeat the methods and codes over and over again. Experience had taught the Firm that, by separating employees first, they would reveal everything – but they wouldn’t while others were listening. When they’d got all the information they needed, they made the guards lie down together. If any further problems arose, the man responsible would be taken out on his own and asked to repeat codes and numbers and procedures until they got it right.
They had to employ psychology. If one of the guards had made a simple error, or lied about procedure, the whole operation would have been doomed. At one point, keys to the main vault were found to be missing. Lighter fluid was poured on to a guard’s legs and a matchbox rattled by his ear. The Firm threatened to torch him if the keys weren’t found. One of the guards quickly showed them where they were hidden. Threats were made, but nobody was battered. They were all well treated and offered cigarettes and a drop of tea, although the Firm did eat one of the guards’ sandwiches and an apple. Phone calls by customers to Security Express were answered and no suspicions were aroused, even when Counsell’s wife rang. ‘Don’t forget to bring a loaf of bread home with you,’ she told him, unaware that as she spoke her husband was being held at gunpoint.
Once the vault doors were open, the Firm transferred the cash to trolleys and sent them up on a lift to loading bays, where a 7-ton truck was waiting. The operation to move 5 tons of cash took only about an hour. Forming a human chain, they passed bag after bag, heavy with currency, into the back of the van. Their muscles began to ache, and the bags began to feel increasingly heavy, but knowing each sack contained another £100,000 drove the men to fill the van to the ceiling.
‘Get in! Get in!’ yelled one of the gang, as they emptied the vault of almost its very last pound. But the truck was so full of cash there was no room for one of the men, as planned.
‘Do the doors!’ they shouted to the last man, who had just slammed shut the back of the truck. To escape, a button had to be pressed inside a control box in the corner of the yard. After throwing the switch, the last man would have to race across the yard like a sprinter to escape before those gates automatically slid shut again. He did exactly that, as the van’s engine, loud and throaty, fired up first time. The man turned on his heels, knowing the gates were about to close.
Across the yard, the van gradually built up speed. The driver pulled the gear stick from first to second, then almost immediately punched it forward to third as its back double axle cleared the gate with ease, and growled gently on to the east London streets. The rest of gang followed, walking quietly to waiting getaway cars. As rehearsed, the escape was calm, cool and collected – a screech of brakes or broken speed limit could attract unwanted attention.
But still that last man was fighting his way across the yard, heaving lungfuls of cold air into his body as his legs pumped towards freedom. Hours of throwing around 5 tons of cash, coupled with nerve-racking tension, had left his legs heavy as lead. Still he pushed on as the metal gates drew agonisingly to a close before him.
The driver of one of the Firm’s cars, searched his wing mirror for any sign of his colleague, but saw none. As the gate was closing, it left the man just enough space to drag his sweaty body to freedom.
Jumping out of the Peugeot to help, the driver watched as the last man struggled and squeezed his way free. Relieved, the two men both clambered in the car and pulled away. It was 3.30pm as they drove away calmly, yet eager to put as many miles between them and the scene of this amazing crime. Northwards they fled, to freedom.
It was a long journey to the flophouse, but the bank holiday traffic was light. Inside the van there was no celebration. Not yet. Instead, they sat, still alert, listening to the windscreen wipers rhythmically sweep patterns in the snow that continued to fall on the windscreen. Gradually, the snowflakes subsided, and as the van sped on a thaw crept in, melting the snow into nothing.
And that was exactly what would have to happen to the millions of pounds of used notes packed tightly into the back of the van. They’d blend into the underground, melt away and disappear. But laundering 5 tons of stolen banknotes was no easy task. It had taken criminal genius to commit the robbery, but the hardest part would be getting away with it.
In the years following, these banknotes would come to be responsible for treachery, greed and double crossings. The story would grip the nation and take over newspaper front pages for decades, while the worldwide police investigation would end in the dramatic kidnapping – on foreign soil – of one man the police believed was behind the crime. A man with a kaleidoscopically colourful criminal history, yet who came from very humble beginnings…
I was born on Sheepcote Lane on Saturday, 5 March 1932. Every part of London had one street where villains came from, and in our area it was Sheepcote Lane. I was an unexpected arrival, the youngest of five brothers – the last thing my mother wanted was another boy! I was unwanted, but loved. My father was from Irish stock and my mother from a middle-class London family. Father’s family was huge. There were 13 children: six sisters and seven brothers. My father was christened Herbert Albert Foreman, but his brothers called him Sonny. Confusingly, my mother called him Alf; he called her Lou, short for Louise.
Number 22 Sheepcote Lane was a terraced house, two-up and two-down. You stepped from the street straight into the front room. The kitchen was at the back with an outside lavatory and two bedrooms upstairs. We five brothers shared one bedroom.
The week’s highlights came on a Saturday night. Poor as they were, the family would hold legendary parties after the pubs had closed. As kids, we weren’t allowed inside the pubs, but we’d linger about and wait for the action that usually began after the last drinks had been served.
We