Police missed Belfast bank heist gang by minutes

POLICE in the North revealed last night that they just missed catching the gang responsible for the biggest cash robbery in history by minutes.

Meanwhile, the IRA denied any involvement in the heist.

Police were outside the Northern Bank headquarters in central Belfast moments after a white van made off with the last of the robbers’ £22 million (€32m) haul.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed that it had investigated a report of suspicious activity in Wellington Street beside the bank at around the time the robbery took place.

A man and woman approached a traffic warden in nearby Donegall Place at around 8.10pm to report suspicious activity involving two men and a white van beside the bank.

The traffic warden relayed the information to police. They began to investigate the area soon afterwards, but by that time the van is understood to have been gone for just three minutes and to be speeding along the Westlink which takes traffic out of Belfast - or into both republican and loyalist areas of west Belfast.

Detectives investigating the robbery appealed for the man and woman who spoke to the traffic warden to contact them urgently.

Police only discovered a robbery had taken place at the bank hours later when the hostage wife of a bank official was freed miles away and the alarm raised.

Police denied there was any suggestion they had botched catching the bank robbers. The officer leading the hunt for the gang, Chief Superintendent Andy Sproule, said that after the traffic warden relayed a report of suspicious activity outside the bank side door, officers were there as soon as possible.

He also confirmed that despite the IRA’s denial of responsibility it was still “very much part of the police investigation”.

The specialist team of 45 detectives hunting the gang last night paid little heed to an IRA denial that it was behind the heist.

“No one is taken off our list of suspects just because they say they didn’t do it,” said a police spokesman.

Earlier, a senior republican source claimed: “We are dismissing any suggestion or allegation that we were involved.”

Detectives have identified five groups who they believe are capable of carrying out such a robbery - two criminal gangs and three paramilitary groups.