Two in court in relation to tiger-kidnap bank robbery

Two men charged in connection with the country’s largest bank heist will appear in court today.

They were among six men and a woman detained within hours of a ruthless tiger-kidnapping and the €7.6m robbery from Bank of Ireland’s landmark College Green branch in central Dublin on Friday.

Two other men were released without charge last night and the remaining three people will be questioned further today.

The two other men will be brought before the city’s District Court this morning.

Six men and a woman were detained within hours of the robbery after a series of surveillance operations and raids on homes across north Dublin.

Less than €2m of the stolen cash has been recovered.

With serious questions about bank security policies remaining unanswered, bosses at the country’s major finance houses committed a root-and-branch reviews of rules to combat robberies, including tiger-kidnappings.

Junior bank worker Shane Travers was forced to empty the city centre vault while his girlfriend Stephanie Smith, her mother Joan, and Joan’s six-year-old grandson were held hostage at gunpoint.

Gardaí were not alerted about the robbery – similar to that carried out at the Northern Bank in Belfast when £26.5m (€29.5m) was taken in a pre-Christmas raid in December 2004 – until Mr Travers had left the bank with four laundry bags full of new notes at 7.15am.