The €20m Belfast bank heist
A gang who pulled off the spectacular raid - one of the biggest in European banking history - may have been working on inside intelligence.
Detectives hunting the team behind the heist believe they could have had access to vital security codes at the Northern Bank's headquarters in Belfast. Underground vaults were cleared in two-and-a-half hours, after the families of two kidnapped managers were held hostage.
Police suspect that a top criminal outfit with possible paramilitary connections was behind the operation, which was staged with military style precision.
The scale of the robbery stunned police chiefs heading a major offensive against organised crime in the North, which has developed into a business worth £1 billion a year.
Assistant chief constable Sam Kinkaid, who is leading the hunt for the raiders, said a bank audit had yet to establish exactly how much was seized but he confirmed the theft of at least £20m (€28.8m).
Mr McDowell warned of the consequences of any paramilitary involvement.
"It would be of huge importance if the robbery was shown to be the work of paramilitaries," he said.
Police sources said that could not be ruled out because of the scale of the operation.
Up to 20 men are believed to have been involved. Mr Kinkaid said it was too early to comment on paramilitary involvement, adding: "This was not a lucky crime, this was a well-organised crime."
The size of the operation put it on a par with the 1983 assault on the Brinks Mat security warehouse near Heathrow, when gold bullion bars valued at £26m were stolen by armed men posing as security guards.
The biggest bank heist in the Republic was the Brinks Allied raid in which IR£2.8m was taken in January 1995. No one was ever charged.
This time a gang went to the houses of two senior Northern Bank officials late on Sunday night.
With their families held hostage at undisclosed locations, the men left their homes on Monday morning with strict instructions to behave normally at work.
The operation to empty the cash vaults of the distribution centre was launched at the close of business on Monday. At least one lorry nosed its way down a narrow side entrance on Wellington Street, just off Donegall Square West, opposite City Hall.
Thousands were on the streets at the time, and detectives last night were looking for anyone who might have spotted some sort of activity.
Most of the money stolen was in Northern Bank notes, and virtually all the rest was in sterling printed by other banks in the province, which will make it next to impossible to shift in any sizeable quantities in Britain or the Republic without raising suspicion.
The bank managers were reunited with their families late on Monday night.
Mr Kinkaid said: "Whether the criminal gang involved in this, which was clearly well-organised, has any connections at all to paramilitary groups, we are making no comment on that at present."
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