start at the top end of the market and rip off a Rolls-Royce.
It’s remarkable really. If you tried to break into a Rolls-Royce and drive it away, people would look. People would see you. People would call the police. But if you arrive with an AA pickup truck and simply tow the Roller away, people don’t even seem to notice.
Those who do, usually laugh. Well, there’s nothing more pleasing than a broken down Rolls-Royce, is there? It’s nice to see that even rich blighters come unstuck once in a while.
The Reverend Jim would rip off a Roller a week with the hired out AA pickup truck and he probably would have been content with that. He’d made an underworld connection, which was hardly too difficult a thing to do, if you were brought up in the kind of neighbourhood where Jim was brought up. The Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of Brentford. And this partner in crime was selling the Rollers on to Arabs and the money was pretty good. But one day, when he was returning the AA pickup truck to the prophouse that hired out the vehicles, he spied a new vehicle that they had in stock.
The prophouse had mocked it up for a crime thriller movie about a bullion robbery. The vehicle in question was a Securicor van.
The Reverend Jim was not slow to realize the potential of this particular vehicle. And of course there were those other prophouses. The ones that hired out costumes. So the uniforms wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
The Reverend Jim took a week off work. He followed a real Securicor van around. Mapping its routes and logging the times at its various ports of call.
The following week he hired the van and the costumes and he and his partner in crime did the rounds, arriving ten minutes earlier than the real van.
It was a masterstroke.
And once they’d emptied the contents of the bogus van into the lock-up, they returned it and the costumes to the respective prophouses and then drove back to the lock-up in another hired van to pick up the loot and carry it far far away.
And were promptly arrested by the police.
Well, almost.
It was
that
close.
They were returning to the lock-up when they saw the police cars. The police had the lock-up surrounded: pretty quick work, thought Jim. Far too quick, in fact. It occurred to him that the police had probably been tipped off about all the Rollers that had been going in and out and that they’d get quite a surprise when they opened the lock-up and discovered all the newly stolen bullion.
This was just an unfortunate coincidence. A caprice of fate. Jim was pretty rattled seeing all those police cars there, but also felt somewhat proud that he had had the foresight to hire the sort of van he had hired, with which to carry his loot so far far away.
This particular van was a mock police van.
Jim had hired the police uniforms and everything.
Well, let’s face it. The police, once alerted to the robbery, would be looking for a bogus Securicor van, not a police van.
Jim got a real kick out of having real policemen help him and his partner load up the van with all the stolen booty.
He told a friend about this over the phone.
Jim was living in Spain at the time.
The Reverend Jim’s present whereabouts are unknown. But at least two further crimes committed in this country have his unique stamp on them.
The first one was the great art robbery.
Jim had always had a love for original art. His taste was for certain living artists who produced the kind of abstract stuff that most people wouldn’t give you a thank you for, but Jim adored it and wanted to own a collection.
So what Jim did was to take a short lease on a shop premises in Mayfair and open it up as a very prestigious art gallery. He then contacted the various artists for whose work he had his taste and asked them whether they’d care to exhibit. Unlike other art galleries, he would waive the 40 per cent commission on this occasion and allow the artists to keep all the money their paintings sold for. It would
It’s remarkable really. If you tried to break into a Rolls-Royce and drive it away, people would look. People would see you. People would call the police. But if you arrive with an AA pickup truck and simply tow the Roller away, people don’t even seem to notice.
Those who do, usually laugh. Well, there’s nothing more pleasing than a broken down Rolls-Royce, is there? It’s nice to see that even rich blighters come unstuck once in a while.
The Reverend Jim would rip off a Roller a week with the hired out AA pickup truck and he probably would have been content with that. He’d made an underworld connection, which was hardly too difficult a thing to do, if you were brought up in the kind of neighbourhood where Jim was brought up. The Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of Brentford. And this partner in crime was selling the Rollers on to Arabs and the money was pretty good. But one day, when he was returning the AA pickup truck to the prophouse that hired out the vehicles, he spied a new vehicle that they had in stock.
The prophouse had mocked it up for a crime thriller movie about a bullion robbery. The vehicle in question was a Securicor van.
The Reverend Jim was not slow to realize the potential of this particular vehicle. And of course there were those other prophouses. The ones that hired out costumes. So the uniforms wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
The Reverend Jim took a week off work. He followed a real Securicor van around. Mapping its routes and logging the times at its various ports of call.
The following week he hired the van and the costumes and he and his partner in crime did the rounds, arriving ten minutes earlier than the real van.
It was a masterstroke.
And once they’d emptied the contents of the bogus van into the lock-up, they returned it and the costumes to the respective prophouses and then drove back to the lock-up in another hired van to pick up the loot and carry it far far away.
And were promptly arrested by the police.
Well, almost.
It was
that
close.
They were returning to the lock-up when they saw the police cars. The police had the lock-up surrounded: pretty quick work, thought Jim. Far too quick, in fact. It occurred to him that the police had probably been tipped off about all the Rollers that had been going in and out and that they’d get quite a surprise when they opened the lock-up and discovered all the newly stolen bullion.
This was just an unfortunate coincidence. A caprice of fate. Jim was pretty rattled seeing all those police cars there, but also felt somewhat proud that he had had the foresight to hire the sort of van he had hired, with which to carry his loot so far far away.
This particular van was a mock police van.
Jim had hired the police uniforms and everything.
Well, let’s face it. The police, once alerted to the robbery, would be looking for a bogus Securicor van, not a police van.
Jim got a real kick out of having real policemen help him and his partner load up the van with all the stolen booty.
He told a friend about this over the phone.
Jim was living in Spain at the time.
The Reverend Jim’s present whereabouts are unknown. But at least two further crimes committed in this country have his unique stamp on them.
The first one was the great art robbery.
Jim had always had a love for original art. His taste was for certain living artists who produced the kind of abstract stuff that most people wouldn’t give you a thank you for, but Jim adored it and wanted to own a collection.
So what Jim did was to take a short lease on a shop premises in Mayfair and open it up as a very prestigious art gallery. He then contacted the various artists for whose work he had his taste and asked them whether they’d care to exhibit. Unlike other art galleries, he would waive the 40 per cent commission on this occasion and allow the artists to keep all the money their paintings sold for. It would
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