Man arrested in connection with €7.6m bank robbery in Dublin

A MAN has been arrested in connection with a robbery last year during which a family was held hostage at gunpoint before €7.6 million in cash was taken from the vaults of a bank.

Gardaí said yesterday that a 25-year-old man was detained on the outskirts of Dublin city on Thursday.

He was being questioned about the robbery last February of the Bank of Ireland branch at College Green, Dublin, in which €7.6 million was stolen. Almost €2 million was recovered.

The money was withdrawn from the bank by employee Shane Travers early on Friday, February 27th, after his partner, Stephanie Smith, her mother, Joan Smith, and Joan’s five-year-old grandson were taken hostage at their house at Badgers Hill, Kilteel, Co Kildare.

The incident began when an armed gang of six men forced their way into the house when the two women and the child arrived home between 10pm and 10.30pm on the previous evening.

The men were all wearing balaclavas, black clothing, gloves and spoke with Dublin accents, and at least three of the gang were armed with handguns and a shotgun.

The four were held hostage overnight until 5.30am when the gang ordered the two women and the child into the back of a blue Peugeot Partner van.

Gardaí said this van was fitted with false registration plates.

They were tied up and driven in the back of the van to The Rath, near the Marriott Hotel in Ashbourne, Co Meath. At 6.30am Mr Travers drove his red Toyota Celica to the Bank of Ireland branch in College Green.

Within 15 minutes he left the bank with what gardaí described as four laundry bags, and placed them in the car.

He then drove to Clontarf where at 7.30am he met a man wearing a baseball cap at the Dart station. This man then took possession of the Toyota Celica, at which point Mr Travers walked across the road to Clontarf Garda station and reported the crime.

The car was later found burned out near the Tolka House pub in Glasnevin.

The robbery was described at the time by Supt John Gilligan of the Garda Press Office as ‘‘comparable to any large-scale robbery that has ever taken place in this country”. The incident led many of the Republic’s leading financial institutions to carry out a root-and-branch review of their security procedures.

The man arrested on Thursday was being held at Naas Garda station under Section 30 of the Offences against the State Act. He can be held for 72 hours before he must either be released or charged.

Two men were remanded in custody last March in connection with the robbery, and their case remains before the courts.