Great Bookie robbery

Last updated

The Great Bookie robbery was a crime committed in Melbourne, Australia, on 21 April 1976.

Contents

Crime

A well-organised gang of six stole what is widely believed to be from $14–16 million (in 2011 the equivalent of $88 million) from bookmakers in the Victoria Club, which was located on the second floor of a building in Queen Street, Melbourne. The true figure for the amount stolen has never been confirmed, as the Victoria Club quoted the missing figure to police as only $1 million to avoid the attention of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The gang included Raymond "Chuck" Bennett, who is believed to have been the mastermind, Ian Carroll, Laurence Prendergast and Norman Lee. They rented an office several floors above and hid the money in that room's safe before coolly walking out of the building and onto the street days after the event. [1]

Aftermath

The identity of the robbers was widely known in the underworld and so Bennett became the target of standover men, who included Brian and Leslie Kane, and corrupt police demanding part of the proceeds. The Kane brothers were particularly violent psychopaths who wanted 'their cut' and were willing to torture, mutilate and kill to get their own way. After being told that the Kanes intended to kill him, Bennett, Prendergast and Vincent Mikkleson killed Leslie Kane on 19 October 1978 and went into hiding. The three were later arrested for the murder but as the body was never found, the charges were dismissed. With Brian Kane threatening to kill him, Bennett was arrested on a minor charge in 1979. While being escorted by police from the courthouse holding cells to the courtroom, he was taken up a flight of stairs into the path of a man, disguised as a barrister. The man shot Bennett several times in the chest. Bennett tried to flee but collapsed on the courthouse steps and died a short time later. Although Brian Kane was suspected, circumstantial evidence suggested a conspiracy to kill Bennett, which included senior members of the Victorian Police, most notably Brian Murphy with whom Bennett had a long-standing feud.

No one has ever been arrested for Bennett's murder, which was, in effect, an execution. The money was never recovered and although Norman Lee was charged, he was later acquitted. None of the other members of the gang was ever convicted. Prendergast disappeared in 1985, and apart from Lee, the rest of the gang had all been murdered by the end of 1987. In 1992, Lee was killed by police during a heist at Melbourne Airport. Lee's lawyer, Phillip Dunn, QC, later revealed the details of the crime, including the identities of all those involved. As no one was ever jailed or convicted, the Great Bookie robbery technically remains an unsolved crime.

Robbery is a 1985 Australian television film directed by Michael Thornhill based on the original crime but otherwise entirely fictional.

In 1986 a miniseries of three 90-minute episodes was released depicting the robbery. [2] [3] This miniseries started filming on 26 August 1984, [4] and was broadcast in November 1986. [5] Lee participated in the production as a consultant, and even used his own residence in Verity Street, Richmond as the shooting location for the house of one of the gang. Lee was still living there at the time of his death.

The 2002 Australian feature film The Hard Word draws on the Great Bookie robbery for its major crime scene. In this version, however, a number of people are killed during the robbery.

A highly fictionalised version of the crime was also depicted in one episode of the 2009 miniseries Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities . In this version, Bennett pulls off the crime with the assistance of Robert Trimbole, without the Kane brothers. The Kanes are tipped off after the event by Chris Flannery, setting off a turf war. Neither Trimbole nor Flannery were actually involved in the real heist.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bank robbery</span> Crime of stealing from a bank using violence

Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank-owned property, such as a train, armored car, or (historically) stagecoach. It is a federal crime in the United States.

The Brink's-Mat robbery occurred at the Heathrow International Trading Estate, London, United Kingdom, on 26 November 1983. £26 million worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash was stolen from a warehouse. The bullion was the property of Johnson Matthey Bankers Ltd, which collapsed the following year after making large loans to fraudsters and insolvent firms. Two men were convicted, and the majority of the gold has never been recovered. Insurers Lloyd's of London paid out for the losses, and several shooting deaths have been linked to the case.

This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lufthansa heist</span> 1978 cash robbery at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, United States

The Lufthansa heist was a robbery at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated $5.875 million was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time. Jimmy Burke, a Lucchese crime family associate, was reputed to be the mastermind of the robbery, but he was never officially charged in connection with the crime. Burke is also alleged to have either committed or ordered the murders of many of those involved in the months following the robbery to avoid being implicated in the heist. The only person convicted in the robbery was Louis Werner, an airport worker who helped plan the heist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Securitas depot robbery</span> 2006 heist in Tonbridge, Kent, England

The Securitas depot robbery was a 2006 heist in Tonbridge, Kent, which was the UK's largest cash robbery. It began with a kidnapping on the evening of 21 February and ended in the early hours of 22 February, when seven criminals stole almost £53 million. The gang left behind another £154 million because they did not have the means to transport it.

Christopher Dale Flannery, nicknamed "Mr Rent-a-Kill" is alleged to have been an Australian contract killer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dunn (bushranger)</span>

John Dunn was an Australian bushranger. He was born at Murrumburrah near Yass in New South Wales. He was 19 years old when he was hanged in Darlinghurst Gaol. He was buried in the former Devonshire Street Cemetery in Sydney.

<i>Blue Murder</i> (miniseries) Australian TV miniseries

Blue Murder is a two-part Australian television crime drama miniseries produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1995, and is based on true events.

Judith Maryanne Moran is the matriarch of the Moran criminal family of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, involved in the Melbourne gangland killings.

The Carlton Crew is a criminal organisation based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which was formed in the late 1970s and named after the Melbourne suburb in which it is based, Lygon Street, Carlton, commonly called "Little Italy". The organisation was a fierce rival to the Honoured Society and the Calabrese Family, both of which were Calabrian 'Ndrangheta groups also based in Melbourne, and were additionally allies of the mostly Irish Moran family. The Carlton Crew had a strong role in the infamous Melbourne gangland killings.

Organised crime in Australia refers to the activities of various groups of crime families, organised crime syndicates or underworld activities including drug trafficking, contract killing, racketeering and other crimes in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millennium Dome raid</span> Attempted robbery of diamond exhibition

The Millennium Dome raid was an attempted robbery of the Millennium Dome's diamond exhibition in Greenwich, South East London occurring on 7 November 2000. A local gang planned to ram-raid the De Beers diamond exhibition which was being held in the riverside Dome at the time. The gang had then planned to escape via the Thames in a speedboat.

Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, the second series of the Nine Network crime drama series Underbelly, originally aired from 9 February 2009 to 4 May 2009. It is a thirteen-part series loosely based on real events that stemmed from the marijuana trade centred on the New South Wales town of Griffith. The timeline of the series is the years between 1976 and 1987. Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities primarily depicts the Mr. Asia drug syndicate and its influence on crime in Australia. Among the characters presented are real-life criminals Robert Trimbole, Terry Clark, George Freeman, Christopher Dale Flannery, Alphonse Gangitano and the Kane Brothers. The mini-series is a prequel to the 2008 production Underbelly, which was about the Melbourne gangland killings and forms part of the Underbelly series.

The history of gangs in Australia goes back to the colonial era. Criminal gangs flourished in The Rocks district of Sydney in its early history in the 19th century. The Rocks Push was a notorious larrikin gang which dominated the area from the 1800s to the end of the 1900s. The gang was engaged in running warfare with other larrikin gangs of the time such as the Straw Hat Push, the Glebe Push, the Argyle Cut Push, the Forty Thieves from Surry Hills, and the Gibb Street Mob.

Leslie Herbert Kane was an Australian gangster who lived in Melbourne, Australia. He became a member of the Federated Union of Painters and Dockers at the age of fourteen. By the time of Kane's death, he had appeared in court 27 times as the accused.

Criminal activity in Victoria, Australia is combated by the Victoria Police and the Victorian court system, while statistics about crime are managed by the Crime Statistics Agency. Modern Australian states and cities, including Victoria, have some of the lowest crime rates recorded globally with Australia ranked the 13th safest nation and Melbourne ranked the 5th safest city globally. As of September 2018 the CBD of Melbourne had the highest rate of overall criminal incidents in the state (15,949.9), followed by Latrobe (12,896.1) and Yarra (11,119.2). Rural areas have comparatively high crime rates, with towns such as Mildura (9,222.0) and Greater Shepparton (9,111.8) having some of the highest crime rates in the state.

The Sydney gangland war were a series of murders and killings of several known criminal figures and their associates that took place in Sydney, Australia, during the 1980s. A vast majority of the murders were seen as retributive killings and attempts to control the Sydney's drug trade and expansion of criminal territory. A significant number of the murders that took place during the Sydney gangland war went unsolved, mainly due to corrupt police and their association with members of the Sydney Underworld.

The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, an international outlaw biker gang, has been involved in multiple crimes, alleged crimes, and violent incidents in Australia. The Hells Angels are legally classified as a criminal organisation in the Australian state of Queensland, and there have been attempts to classify them as such in New South Wales. The Hells Angels have been linked with drug trafficking and production, as well as a host of violent crimes including murder, in Australia.

References

  1. ↑ "Inside the Great Bookie Robbery". NewsComAu. 27 November 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  2. ↑ Ed. Scott Murray, Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995, Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p.200
  3. ↑ "Features 10 years later, cameras roll on the Great Bookie Robbery Bright light for a perfect crime". The Canberra Times . Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 5 April 1986. p. 7 (Section B). Retrieved 28 May 2020– via Trove.
  4. ↑ "Robbery with realism", Cinema Papers, November 1984 p.46
  5. ↑ "The Great Bookie Robbery". IMDB. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.