Brinks Allied: £2.8m in 10 minutes

THE £2.8 million Brinks Allied cash robbery in January 1995 was one of the most cash-rich crimes of its kind witnessed in this country.

The robbery commanded the attention of the media for a long time after its execution, a fact which from the immediate wake of the operation did not go down well with the Dublin criminals thought to have been behind the heist.

Dublin journalist Veronica Guerin was shot in the leg by a man who called to her home after writing a series of probing reports on the Brinks Allied robbery.

On January 30, 1995, she was shot in the thigh at her home at Cloghran in north Co Dublin.

The attacker came to the house at 6.45pm on a motorcycle, wearing a visor over his head.

When Ms Guerin answered the door, he first pointed the gun at her head but then shot her in the right thigh.

The bullet was removed following surgery at Beaumont Hospital.

At the time, gardaí said the attack was linked to Ms Guerin’s coverage of the Brinks Allied robbery.

On January 24, 1995, a Dublin gang lord with a team of 12 raided the Brinks Allied depot at Clonsaugh, Co Dublin, near Dublin Airport.

It took the thieves all of 10 minutes to break in, snatch and make off with the massive haul of cash.

Gardaí knew, it later emerged, the gang in question had a big heist in the pipeline and had the then 32-year-old gang boss under almost constant surveillance.

They even had the cash depot near Santry under surveillance.

One week before the robbery this element of the garda operation was relaxed. It was then the gang hit.

The cash had been delivered to the depot in an armoured van under military escort at 6.28pm.

Two minutes after the soldiers had departed the raiders drove stolen 4WD vehicles through the weakest section of the steel periphery fence.

The gang fired warning shots into the air, kept staff at bay and loaded up their jeeps with bags of cash.

At 6.40pm the gang drove off across fields and towards the airport motorway outside Santry.