Gang that held two people gets away with €100,000

A SECURITY guard and two members of his family were taken hostage in a so-called Tiger kidnapping incident which led to the theft of more than €100,000.

The Brinks Allied employee was targeted by a gang of four masked and armed men who entered his home off Bath Avenue in Irishtown, Dublin at 6.30am yesterday.

They took his mother, who is in her 70s, and niece hostage and forced him to drive to the Bank of Ireland on O’Connell Street where his company was delivering cash yesterday morning. They also gave him a mobile phone.

The robbery would appear to have been well planned as the gang knew that a cash delivery was due and they also knew where the kidnapped man and his family lived.

The employee obtained a quantity of cash from the bank and was directed to go to a hotel car park in Drumcondra in a white Renault van, where he left the vehicle.

He then took a Dart to Bray where he alerted gardaí to the disappearance of the money.

His mother and niece were held captive for about six hours before they were released in the Newvale Crescent estate in Shankill, south Dublin.

All three were traumatised by the incident and were later interviewed by gardaí.

Investigators from Donnybrook are heading up the hunt for the gang, led by Supt Finbarr O’Brien and helped by members from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Garda Technical Bureau.

Gardaí would like to talk to anyone who was in the O’Connell Gardens area of Irishtown yesterday morning and might have seen something suspicious.

Speaking last night, Supt O’Brien appealed for information on two vehicles used during, and in the days prior, to the incident. A white Renault Kangoo Van, registration number 05 KE 6457, was driven by the security man and found in the Drumcondra area. It was stolen in Dublin in December 2009. A Silver Toyota Verso people carrier, registration number 98 D 29588 was used to carry the family of the security man, before being found at New Vale Crescent, Shankill, Co Dublin.

It is believed that protocols for these kidnappings worked out between banks, security companies and the authorities were followed as gardaí were alerted to the raid relatively soon after it was completed.

Following a string of kidnappings of bank officials late last year, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern met bank chiefs and raised concerns about the quantities of money stored in vulnerable branches.

Banks were also ordered to look into tightening rules on staff access to large sums of cash to further combat similar raids.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charles Flanagan said it was clear from yesterday’s raid that the protocols were no deterrent to criminals.

He accused financial institutions of continuing to put their employees in the front line without introducing hi-tech security solutions.