The Great Bookie Robbery - PDF document

The Great Bookie Robbery sorne Rafimd grtifze by lro GroAu Rafimd fzifk here The Great Bookie Robbery is one of the most daring and dazzling robberies in modern history and Australian crime folklore. The robbery captured the imagination of ordinary law abiding Australian citizens while the victims were even forced to compliment on the robbery. The stolen cash was never recovered while none of the perpetrators were caught. A group of men walked into the Victoria Club in Melbourne on April 21, 1976. They took out their guns and told the cashier to hand over all the cash. The group of six men stole between $6 and $12 million from the club. The men had rented an office in the building in which the club was based on Queen Street in Melbourne where they hid the money they had robbed and made their getaway in a van. The men involved in the crime were Raymond Bennett, Ian Carroll, Laurence Prendergast, Brian and Leslie Kane and Norman Lee. The police could never find the money that was robbed. Norman Lee was charged and later acquitted. None of the other people were convicted. In 1992, Norman Lee was killed in a heist at Melbourne Airport. The details of the crime were revealed by Norman Lee’s lawyer, Phillip Dunn, QC, who revealed the details of the crime in the mid-1990s. Laurence Prendergast disappeared in 1985 and by 1987 the rest of the gang was murdered. The crime caught the imagination of the electronic media and in 1986 a miniseries of three 90 minute episodes was released showing the robbery. Norman Lee worked as a consultant for the production and offered his residence for the shooting of the miniseries. Norman Lee’s house was located on Verity Street, Richmond. The house was used as the residence of one of the gang members. A miniseries called Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities was produced in 2009. This miniseries showed a fictionalised version of the Great Bookie Robbery in one of its episodes. In the episode being discussed, Raymond Bennett pulls off the crime with help from Robert Trimbole, an Australian businessman, drug baron and organised crime boss, who was said to have been involved in the disappearance of anti- marijuana campaigner Donald Mackay and was accused of involvement in drug trafficking in the Griffith, New South Wales area. In reality, it was the Kane brothers who had helped in the crime. Chris Flannery, believed to be an Australian hitman, tipped off the Kane brothers after the robbery, which set off a off a turf war. There is another episode in which there is a reference to the crime, when two men are accused of robbing a courier said to be working for the Kane brothers who has recently exchanged money for drugs. This sets off a war in which both sides make threats which leads to the murder of one of the Kane brothers in 1978. An Australian movie released in 2002 called The Hard Word takes inspiration from the Great Bookie Robbery for its main crime scene. In the movie version, a number of people are killed during the robbery. Phillip Dunn, QC, revealed the secrets to Australia’s biggest robbery, the Great Bookie Robbery, after more than 20 years. According to Phillip Dunn, the details could not be revealed because of lawyer-client privilege. The story that Phillip Dunn has revealed contradicts what was believed to have happened immediately after the robbery. The police and the media were under the impression that the money was in the robbers’ stolen white getaway van whereas the money never left the building. For Free Bookie Bets go to http://www.freebetsfree.com.au