Australia's Classiest Master Thieves (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories
real stories tapes true crime is your new true crime podcast fix in our first season we'll explore suspicious deaths at a california hospital and a skydiver landing dead on a suburban driveway with a bag containing guns drugs and night vision goggles to join our investigation search and subscribe to real stories tapes true crime on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you find your podcasts [Music] at the height of the swinging 60s a band of australian thieves known as the kangaroo gang took london by stealth they stole millions of pounds in diamonds and luxury goods from exclusive jewellers and department stores the plunder went on for more than a decade but they never resorted to violence they came with a kind of flying panache you know they were the light horsemen of thieves well they were the best they they proved themselves to be the the best shoplifters in the world these bikes weren't just shoplifters this was ocean's 11 stuff you know not just take one item maybe just 10 in one heap how they used to do it i don't know they would take anything that wasn't nailed down they'd go to stores and take everything in the store they were thieves they were they dealt in diamonds they dealt in money and they dealt in guile and trickery welcome to asprey gentlemen how may we help you today we're just browsing thank you we can help ourselves very good from 1788 britain had sent its best thieves across the world to australia in the 1960s some made it home there were five master thieves the king the fiber the general we jimmy and the dashing georgie gardner [Music] together with their mob they tore up london in broad daylight and became known as the kangaroo gang thieves by appointment by 1968 the kangaroo gang were on a golden run their leader king arthur delaney had brought a new technique to england his distraction methods had been so successful that no high-class retailer was safe every day more than a hundred australian thieves were operating across london with police powers to stop them their confidence was sky-high there was nothing that they couldn't do nothing they couldn't take nowhere they couldn't enter the great winning aspect for these australian shoplifters in england was that the stores were so open they had so little security protection they couldn't believe their luck then they'd go can we see this diamond ring yes either it would be switched or one of the girls who would be with them would faint and say i'm having a baby and he's the one who's the father and in those days that would cause a great old stir by which time her colleagues would remove the remainder of the diamonds shoplifters taught me many things they taught me that if ever you're going to tell a lie you look someone right in the eye and tell it you don't look away they'd learnt the body language or in the science of sterling and they taught it to the english the gang would spend their loot just as quickly as they stole it arthur delaney's share would find its way into the coffers of gambling houses and fashionable clubs i would carry a lot of money if that's what he had and he probably wouldn't go home till it was all gone whatever was left it'd go to the baccarat arthur was a great celebration man in fact they all were they would steal all day drink and gamble womanize all night so that would be in there and and arthur would be playing baccarat losing all his money and and and you know shouting the bar drinks and all this sort of stuff and big noting himself each of the shoplifters had a style of their own they worked together out of necessity they identified targets and they performed their tasks of distracting the staff taking the goods and selling them at half price but then they would spend it and often spend it together one of their favorite things to do is to get a flash car a bentley or a big mercedes and drive down to monte carlo and lose the lot tales of their exploits were now spreading across london's underworld gorgeous georgie gardner had raised the stakes in a bold series of raids on banks he targeted the foreign exchange counters where security was non-existent the bank said just a desk they never had a all this built up front and this and that and there wasn't a camera anywhere there wasn't nothing you know i mean they had virtually an open goal they could do what they like it was one thing working in small jewelers on bond street and so forth to then moving to big banking chambers which were full of people and lots of angles they had to create much higher level distractions to pull their jobs off the kangaroo gang employed the fundamental principle of all magicians to conceal the smaller move there must first be a bigger move but georgie gardner and his team turned it into a royal command performance next please g'day mate how are you fine thank you andrew yeah great thanks for asking just in from australia look i need a little help with uh exchange rates and you look like an expert oh i'll do my best yeah great well we're going across to the continent uh from here and i need to know what currencies are gonna work best for me well there are some restrictions on what you can take in and out of england uh whereabouts are you going oh well everywhere i can hey here let's take a look at this map um so first we're going across to rome now they've got the drachma there haven't they oh no uh italy is the lira the drachma's grease oh oh so they have yeah right so i'm gonna need a few of them um how many of those do you reckon i'm gonna need oh hurry man this fella's having an epileptic fit george gardner should be remembered as one of england's most successful bank robbers he was never caught and he never carried a firearm distraction was his weapon of choice for that he relied on his long-time partner normie seddon and a cast of supporting players and georgie gardner he his right hand man was norm that's for sure they were always together they went together they worked together i don't think they slept together but they were very very close so they needed to get position the the teller in a certain way at the front of the in the in the tellers booth push them to one side away from their cash drawer which a guy like normy sutton was very good at he would come up with some inquiry and and draw them to the side with a with a foreign exchange chart or some other thing and detail information hey here let's take a look at this map um and this is the way they played it they and sometimes they use six people as diversionary uh tactics all the head pullers had to be in the right place and everyone had to do their work but taking a tcs was a little bit different than taking something at the main cashiel's till the tcs were always at the back or at the side and those days they did not have big grills going up in the wall when when george was confident that everyone's heads were pulled he'd pull out his extendable car aerial with a hook on the end of it simply reach over grab the um the the rubber bands around the uh traveler's checks or the front extent and ping them back and he would he would clean out the whole drawer while this is going expert timing was incredibly quick george gardner's head pullers were the best in the business they could adapt to any circumstance with just the right distraction there are occasions where a fight might work best for creating the time and space for gardiner to claim his prize how many of those do you reckon i'm gonna need hey what the get out of my pocket you bloody thief i beg your pardon how dare you accuse me of such a thing well that's my 10 pound note in your hand chum hand it over pick my pocket will you oh why it happened but he tried to pick my pocket that is an outrageous assertion i'll give you an outrageous assertion oh will you i know just but for the biggest occasions gardiner would call for a lady known as ma barker so i'm going to need a few of them um how many of those do you reckon i'm going to need oh it's so hot in here oh i'm nervous oh no love it's a bloody scorcher i'm just we're waiting it's not that hot oh she's bloody good what do you think you're doing get your hands off me a dirty car job that's better oh and i just feel like dancing [Music] it was a bank on the corner of knightsbridge [Music] right there right in the middle of everything you know what i mean she just stripped off so they're all gazing i think it was he slipped behind the counter and you know nicked a couple of trays of uh cashier's money while they're watching this they're doing a gypsy dance georgie gardner's bank jobs were rip-roaring successes and the cash came flooding in and this was so successful it was incredible i mean there was one time when they when they did it there was actually a policeman in the queue waiting to cash his wages and he didn't see it either the criminal intelligence suggests that there was one in excess of a million pounds probably a couple of million pounds that have been taken in this way so it was becoming very apparent that they were taking more out of the system than our armed robbers now the police were really interested in the aussies robbing banks set off alarm bells at the highest levels of english society they weren't taking on banks in the sense of going over the counter and shooting up the ceiling what they were doing was stealing travelers checks forging them and robbing banks that way and that was regarded as just not on once you take out lloyds bank or barclays or you're starting to get into the real english ruling class um who have connections in the parliament who have connections at the highest level in the force and this started to filter down through force command that it's trying to put these cheeky aussies out of business uh because they're they're beginning to hurt us as outrage spread over the colonial crime wave scotland yards swung into action a small under-resourced criminal intelligence squad c11 began to compile a special dossier known as the australian index the lads weren't hard to find as they congregated in pubs almost every day [Music] hello and who might you be jim want to come and take a look and see if you can identify this new fella talking to jimmy lloyd come take a look [Music] which one is lloyd again slightly baldy you're standing at the front talking to the ball guy right in front of you [Music] i've seen that face before there's pictures on the table any luck i think it's jimmy lloyd's brother cecil twins aren't they well the aussies say here they pose as twins but they actually aren't well they look like twins no cecil's a couple of years younger and they swap identities to avoid detection crimes they go to some trouble jimmy's got a pile of aliases william ritchie thomas lee peter william lloyd james edward wilson harry lee arthur jessup william edward lloyd peter lloyd williams nice it also says here the way to tell them apart is that jimmy's got off his index finger missing on his right hand doesn't seem to end him thieving take a look at this [Music] glasses barry had a pub at paddington and that was a place that they all seemed to go and meet and greet so that we were able to go sit outside and collect a few photographs we would then get their australian record come over with their fingerprints so that a criminal record office file was opened immediately and therefore we were using the names that they had in australia not the ones they gave us when they were first arrested in london but once there was some sort of organization as to who was doing what where and starting to make an index in the list then the days of the kangaroos were if not numbered it was becoming prudent to leave and find other fields in december 1967 the first australian index was published and intelligence began to flood in from police across the united kingdom every station it seemed had a story of the aussies exploits i think the first police gazette maybe there was 75 or even more photographs and descriptions of the australian team as we knew then this of course escalated for the simple reason there was a numerous phone calls coming back what about this one what about that one you haven't got this one after the publication of the australian index in the police gazette and the follow-up work life became much more hard for the aussies they were suddenly recognized yeah well the writing was definitely on the wall and it was a shock and and the amount of prison that was handed out was also a shock so a lot of people did scarpa it was only really the masters that stayed and plodded through so it really weeded out the good from the bad the boys from the men one of the gang members who stayed was george gardner whose daring bank robbing exploits had drawn the attention of dc mike pierce one of the first big names to be caught was the master of distraction normie seddon we went to a block of flats i think it was on the first floor some were stationed outside case he decided to leave by a window and i some colleagues went to the front door and we basically uh knocked and went through the door quite quickly to be greeted by his girlfriend who incidentally was arrested as well but when we searched the place we found certain items that could connect him to some of the bank stamps that went on the travis checks so in the end he went straight to a police station where he was interrogated and charged pierce's investigation led to seddon being convicted and sent to prison for more than 10 offences however his partner gardner fled to the canary islands where he was later captured but with the aid of the kangaroo gang at a handsome bribe gardner eventually slipped from pierce's grasp everybody had to put their hands in their pocket and that's when i learned that it was approximately 40 000 pounds that secured their release which in 1969 was a huge amount [Music] they were very generously supporting each other when there was a bit of a growth you know with somebody [ __ ] at the van on something somebody's busted and they're not holding they all had a whip round and made sure that everything was all right the kangaroo gang had always chipped in to help a mate in need but we jimmy believed that george gardner had gone too far this time his bank robbing was ruining life for the rest of the hoysters i think he was very very upset that these people were bringing discredit amongst the organization and drawing them to attention of police because they would prefer to get on with their work unmolested as opposed to bringing their activities to attention despite his complaints about gardner we jimmy was actually planning his own bank jobs his technique made allowances for his jockey-like stature there was one story where they went into a bank at lunch time they were unable to reach the box so they went and got a milk crate stood on the milk crate to give them more leverage to lean over so they could take the box with the the traveller's checks in by the end of 1969 baby bruce had graduated from picking pockets in the london underground to dual heists on the continent but one of his best thefts was strictly personal he stole arthur's girl i was fascinated by patty burrage you know she was in fact quite an attractive lady and she was connected with the king and that gave me a little bit of inspiration too it could be two inspirations one that she was attractive one that she was associated with the king so it was my name to nick something off him for a change and i don't think that went down well over the years either perhaps he always had a little bit of a grudge for that but then again paddy left me and broke my heart and run off with another fella so there you are broken-hearted bruce then left london for amsterdam to take on the biggest jewel caper of his life well it was estimated it was a half a million dollars worth of diamonds that were removed the snow came down and unfortunately the first time in history amsterdam was frozen with two meters of snow and nobody could move five o'clock in the afternoon of course the alarm went off and they circulated around that there were foreigners in the shop that day and the three of us were nicked and charged the party ended abruptly for baby bruce and his two accomplices inside a grim police station in amsterdam's red light district it was interrogation police station so the two gentlemen came in dressed up as gestapos with their leather coats on and in the middle of winter as they would and their caps and everything one of them spoke to me and asked me where the diamonds were we would like to know there are the jewelry and i said i don't know there are the jewelry ah that was it so it was easy you know we were gonna piss out of this that's how you just get rid of them just tell them nothing then he walked along to liz and he asked her the same question there is the jewelry but before liz could answer he grabbed her violently by the hair pulled her up off the seat that we were sitting on and with his right fist he hit us so hard he smashed the nose there brought it into his knee put her teeth up through her gum here she fell on the floor unconscious then he kicked the [ __ ] out of her underneath the bench we had a horrible experience which turned me off the dual theft for life by the early seventies it was getting tough for the aussies george gardner had been chased back to australia leaving only four master takers still working in london the australian voice in the early 70s was was piss on non-grata if you open your mouth in any way to be an australian they press the button straight away i mean they were causing damage here big time damage not just a couple of diamonds out they were ripping the place to pieces the coppers were really about this that and then we know people get plenty and plenty and plenty and they thought they wasn't dead enough so they're starting to put their foot down a bit and sent one or two of them away and the attitude was when the [ __ ] hits the fan we'll leave and and that was the the status of the day it didn't make that much difference and some people like the king he wanted to be front page in the police because that he he's hit the front page that may have been a part of his downfall because the best thief the best con man the best villain is the one you've never heard of the police were putting the pressure on the gang from many angles english associates like dave barry came in for special attention police used the gazette to call his loyalty into question well they asked as they started giving me a bad name i was having murders with people well they said i was an informant the bastards which is the you couldn't give a man a bigger insult but i've never pleaded guilty in my life any time at all and i'll be charged with murder twice so they can't say a lot about that can they if you arrest somebody you wind you up you can put little bits in there that can cause damage for the future it's just a little question of one for me and this would spread like wildfire and it's very hard to accept you know did were you a grass or you're not a grass and at a level like where davey barry was it's impossible to say whether he was or he wasn't but in my opinion i would say definitely not the police tactics of divide and rule began to weaken the bonds of loyalty between the remaining gang members the australians were regarded as solid but if you speak to one or two policemen of the era they will say that they could be fairly nasty and it's thought that if or they thought that if one of the men was going bent on them he would just disappear not necessarily on a flight home but just disappear full stop i do know two people that died mysteriously one that i'd been with uh the evening he committed suicide the following day he was in the mortuary having taken overdose of drugs and i do know another one that died mysteriously with his head in a gas oven that was an accident because he got nine months and his girlfriend finished up with his guy who was supposed to be his brother so he was in the glass house pub in those water and he said to me he said i feel like committing suicide so for a joke i went next door and got a five pound bag of shillings i said yeah jerry help yourself well he did knocked yourself off you had to put shillings in the gas meter in the place he was living the sweet spot in time for the kangaroo gang had ended with england now too hot the fiber took his bag of bricks to south africa in search of diamonds however this venture ended in a johannesburg jail he convinced the inmates that he was lionel rose's boxing trainer he was a lionel rose as a world champion australian fighter and so he had the whole jail in training to be contenders for a world title you could be a champion which meant he then got a very good sell he had manservants waiting on him hand and foot and then ultimately finished up being in charge of the prison radio at the same time we jimmy lloyd had also been captured in switzerland during a duel heist to we jimmy time in jail was an occupational hazard his philosophy was that as soon as he was arrested he considered that he was serving time and he would do it in solitary confinement basically because he didn't want to speak to the other idiots while we jimmy languished in a swiss jail arthur was back in sydney where he met the true love of his life alexis a gorgeous blonde with her own history including a jealous ex-boyfriend skinny freddle rue the day he threatened after the king delaney that wasn't a threat can't you let it go i can't stand the way lee's at you he's not even a memory anymore he seems to think he still owns you christ love you really want to get into a fight look at you you couldn't knock a pee off a chop well neither could he then what's the point my dear it's called honor i shall return and on victorious yeah just make sure you return you can watch me at the window if you like speaking of idiots [Music] arthur the back seat arthur hey darling what in a minute he was very lucky he wasn't he wasn't killed outright struck him in the back down on his spine instantly paralyzing him from the waist down um he thought it was all over chicken oh i know you're right i told you i'm so scared to fight the king [Music] it was suspected that alex's ex-boyfriend skinny fred mckinnon had brought a well-known assassin with him that night to kill arthur but for once his aim was off only one bullet found its mark [Music] the bullet remained in his back for the rest of his life it was pressing on a nerve um doctors believed that he would get some use of his legs back but he wasn't that was far from certain so this was a substantial obstacle for a travelling crook as you can imagine but he determined that he was going to to walk again and he did defying the odds one more time [Music] in 1971 bruce returned to london from his jail stint in amsterdam with dual theft off his agenda he was back to picking pockets on the underground but by now corrupt senior police controlled and organized the plunder of king solomon's minds he quickly worked out that he needed to get with the strength because what he discovered was that nobody in in london worked the underground without the license of the police because it was five teams not everybody was allowed to be downstairs at the same time with us we had pretty much the best of the lines which would be the piccadilly line knightsbridge south can that was that was our area what the pickpockets could take was strictly controlled by their police minders the money would go or the credit cards would go the rest of the wallet the rest of the dummy would be put immediately into a post office box out the front so the post office box when they clean it out they would find it the man had reported at the police station and nine times out of ten they'd have it back within 24 hours that was one of the rules that came down from upstairs in early 1972 with short jail stints behind them some of the australians were back in london but word soon reached the criminal intelligence branch c11 squad that the aussies were back in business i had a phone call one one day from len mountford who was the chief security officer of american express lane wanted to know why nothing was being done by the the yard in particular about the aussies who were running rampant throughout london we jimmy and his gang were back in business in a big way david woodland began investigating the lloyd's activities they were prime suspects in a series of bank thefts the american expressway alone had been hit for well over 150 000 pounds which in those days was quite a bit of money but they'd also hit the other credit card companies and it was coming close to half a million or or even more and it wasn't just banks that we jimmy was after he knew this second coming of the kangaroo gang would not last long it was time to go flat out i was speaking to one guy and he said he'd been driving past harrid's and he looked in the window and there's the two lloyds brown coats on harrod's badges taking minks off the models in the window over their arms and i went chased down the road for this couple yeah i mean they were so blatant and it as people used to say they're more from in brighton intelligence indicated that we jimmy had once again joined forces with the general billy hill everything from shirts and sheets to gold and diamonds were being benched billy hill was an active member of the group hill would go out thieving and it it would work with the lines they would do they would have jewelry they would they would have anything that wasn't nailed down and they were good at it these guys made a point of going to the pubs and places like that where they knew they'd meet cid officers and they'd get friendly with them i mean they were very sociable fellas they were good company they could tell a good yarn and they'd get invited to police dues boxing matches and things like that the fact that the australians had some police on their payroll made woodland even more determined to bring them to justice he secretly assigned jimmy smith to gather intelligence he said we're going to hit the aussies like they've never been hit before he said but they have got minders he said you know that they've been looked after he said they carry money when they go out doing the business they'll maybe carry a grand in their pocket to pay off police so dave woodland said this has got to be kept strictly here i'll tell you where it is what's happening you try and go out to something else and if you get the pictures don't put them in any index and i always take them home and keep them at home so nobody would know what i'm doing and this went on for over a year i put telephone intercepts on two of the leading guys that were the with the um the lloyd brothers jimmy and cecil lloyd well what we were trying to do is build up a picture of them to get as much background information as we can as to their whereabouts their contacts what they were doing there was a clique of for fairly senior officers who were involved in some forms of corruption and um david woodland found that he suspected his commander david dilli was actually tipping off we jimmy about the operation they were placing on him yeah right david you won't believe it tap on jimmy lloyd's phone has been blown what it's been sold out that's impossible we've kept this completely under wraps take a butcher's hook at this cecil it's jimmy hello mate what's doing well nothing i'm going to tell you about in the dog and bone what's that jim do you have to spell it out you numbskull we've been tinkered oh bill listen to every word how do you know i just know all right and i want to talk about it i'll see you tonight at the usual place all right all right jimmy good as gold see the dennis then jesus cecil you are an imbecile unbelievable there's a rat in the ranks or crooked telephone opera outside either way taps are coming off from tomorrow governor's had enough damn we're so close shame put a lot of work in those two give me a favor keep the taps going for another fortnight he doesn't have to know [Music] it's on your head if he finds out you'll catch it leave him to me you know why they call him the keeper yeah yeah too faced no backbone the intelligence from the wiretaps dried up and woodland believed that david dilly aka the kipper was the reason we jimmy seemed to be one step ahead but woodland kept dc smith snapping pictures of the lloyds and their cronies at one of dave barry's pubs he'd be in this little morris minor in the back of the van there and he'd shoot don't shoot them from you know maybe 30 40 meters away he used to go there a sunday morning around about 11 o'clock and i'd be parked up from half past eight eight o'clock in the morning got a good position sit there and there was nothing better than a summer's day and they sat on the windowsill and then they would pass the beers around hanging away with a the nikon with a 400 mill lines next one would sit down at the window is as if they say here i am jim gets them over i eventually ended up i think there was something like 120 to 130 aussies that were in the team at various times to follow the aussies around was a pleasure because they were obviously having a great time and there's jimmy you've seen these guys down the line you thought these fellas aren't too bad you know they haven't had plenty i wish i wouldn't mind being out you know apart from the crime of course wouldn't mind their lifestyle you know i'd hate to say lovely guys but i mean you would quite easily socialize with them they were that type of people they they were bad but they weren't bad does that sound wrong to say them and they were thieves but so was robin hood and people liked him despite the growing brief of evidence david woodland was ordered by his boss commander david dilli to cease operations on we jimmy's gang including the telephone taps there was no information forthcoming from that tap and pretty soon um woodlands commander comes and says why are you wasting time on the australians get rid of that phone tap you know and do as you're told that's it i have to admit defeat on the lloyd brothers you're pulling my leg no why you haven't read the transcript from this morning have you no i just got in [Music] it's on this is the big one oh yeah like you said yeah remember our uncle in manchester yeah sure jimmy well we're all going to go down and see him tomorrow we're all on the 8 15 a.m out of houston all right right yeah i'll see you bright and early houston station try not to sleep in this time all right gotcha [Music] uh mr lloyd i think we've got you i was fully aware of the fact that jimmy's surname was lloyd so that could be lloyd's bank manchester it was worth a punt keeping his commander out of the loop woodland assembled a team of over 100 officers to meet the lloyd's train in manchester and to track them through the city's banking district it was a big risk if things went wrong his boss david dilli would have his head on a plate the whole job just went off so beautifully the train rolled into manchester piccadilly railway station i was sitting basically face to face with them and it was a very strange thing because i had looked at them close up and long lenses but there they were in real life and there was the two lloyds with jimmy the other ones having having a laugh they were going for a day out as far as everybody and they trained you some aussie guys just going out for a laugh they went into all the banks they had travellers checks off from barclays bank they went to the automobile association and they head off blank international driver's licenses we were all in a high there's no two ways about it i mean this is a year's work keeping it away from people keeping it away from them and some very lonely nights long nights and long days but done it five australians were arrested in manchester the next day back in london woodlands team swooped again picking up another six suspects i think about 11 people were arrested all together with travellers checks and false passports this on this critical piece of intuitive police work um one of the biggest busts in the entire kangaroo gang history you know was made somehow the prize catch we jimmy slipped through the net unfortunately jimmy was quite an elusive character he didn't come in on that first hall he got away and he was nick later in belgium extradited to london we jimmy discovered that only dc smith could place him on the train to manchester before the trial a flying squad officer approached smith with a bribe asking him to say he wasn't sure if it was we jimmy or his brother cecil on the train and just all you've got to say they're identical twins so he said no there's a nice drink in it for you he said there's three grand been laid aside now we're going back to early seventies my mortgage was four and a half grand three grand was a lot of money in md's boobs despite the size of the bribe jimmy smith could not be bought and stood firm on the day of the trial they are identical i said but the man on the train i cannot positively identify because he had the top of his index finger missing and stand up so jimmy stands up hold your hands up judge i seen nine and a half thank you dc smith he wasn't impressed he get three years woodland and smith brought down the australians much to the dismay of corrupt police bosses so despite their success both found themselves back in uniform walking the beat soon after so jim and i that were sort of instrumental in licking the australian team suddenly found ourselves wearing top hats and it didn't go down too well to be quite far to us with you you know so that was that having done all these things and being involved in major crime investigations and i'm walking around romford one night with the sergeant who says look at these cars they're all parked outside the cinema they shouldn't be there a sunday night put tickets on them i didn't that was the final crunch so i put my papers in and then i went out doing investigation work [Music] the days of the kangaroo gang were numbered billy hill was in one jail after another in the 1970s he spent 1978 in the notorious asante prison in paris at the same time the king was languishing in a jail in madrid he and alexis were caught trying to flee the city after a big heist dearest gene a few lines to thank you for your letters which we received it was beautiful of you to think of us under the circumstances we're both in happy spirits and doing it the best way possible alexis is in the next door building to me and i'm allowed two visits weekly tuesday and friday she has a nice suntan as in where she is she can sunbake in the nude though i can't see a pity dave well old son in a spot of bother archie and myself sent peter a letter as he contacted you all our clothes are at the nord hotel do you know anyone who can collect them and deliver them to the nick there is nothing we're in need of only freedom oh it's alexis birthday on the 18th of september it'd be nice if you could send us some flowers through into flora i know she'd like that peter has money of mine and archie's just ring him and see if you can sort it out charged with fifth four croc bags six watches and ten croc belts i hope you picked plenty of winners and once again thanks for writing love and kisses alexis and king send me a telegram so i shall know you got the letter cheers billy the letters from jail show how far the kangaroo gang had fallen the master thieves of the 1960s were now spending more time in prison than stealing jewels the hoist was over this everything had caught up the yard had dismantled the the operations as such and the whole bill were not corrupt\
anymore and you couldn't do anything which was a downside of it police informers were running all over the place it was easy to identify people so you had to stop by the 1980s the kangaroo gang was no more only the king remained to attempt the big jobs still believing he was invincible then cancer struck it looks like it's over for the king at this moment you think well he's bedraggled he's had cancer he's been shot he's been in every jail across europe the king wanted to go out with a bang and what better way than to take on the jeweler appointed to her majesty the queen asprey was founded in 1781 and the name asprey is synonymous with unique luxurious product you come to asprey to buy something that you can't find anywhere else he could have gone after anybody but he went after the best most prestigious shop probably in the world but this wasn't the 1960s it was the 1990s and asprey had all the latest security including cctv there is a use to it because one it can show a whole lot of things one it provides an audit trail if in fact you can see the person two it will give a a situation of a deterrency uh to to the people because i think my my image could be caught on camera three i think importantly it can show you how your staff are operating at the time as well so that can provide real basis for training to your staff to say look this this occurred this is why it's occurred see where you were in the store at the time if you'd been a bit more active if you've been on the floor maybe this wouldn't have happened and still he's got a plan that he's going to hit aspirin no matter what so on the 22nd of june 1990 the king made his appointment with destiny oh i just love the sweet and diamonds at 50 000 pounds of course you do i dare say they would look splendid on you would you mind awfully amusing yourself for a while how may i help you sir i'm looking for something very special for her uh that hits just the right note but of course discretion is is extremely important of course welcome to osprey gentlemen how may we help you today we're just browsing thank you we can help ourselves hey buddy can you give us a hand over here for a minute if you'll excuse me [Music] i was wondering if you could help my wife spend my money it's our anniversary nice work from texas he's still the best in the business and now to work my king [Music] get a new one honey that one's ugly i could possibly go to 30 000 pounds but i'd rather not if i can help it of course [Music] it's getting warm in here you know what honey i think we might buy you a nice fur coat instead thanks for your help fella very good sir thanks should we get some idea no i i don't think so i want the pink diamonds we saw yesterday i'm so sorry thank you you're welcome i don't even think i would even bother to pay for a repair i'm very disappointed but uh thank you for your time thank you for coming to asprey gentlemen i trust you have a wonderful day thank you we already have actually they say the world has changed since we were young but i'd say the more things change the more they stay the same it's thought jewelry worth up to two million pounds has been stolen from asprey's the exclusive west end store police say a gang of thieves stole the valuables from the new bond street store on june the 22nd but details have only just emerged it's believed four men and a woman posed as customers and one of them opened a display case while sales assistants were distracted here's ospreys this is impregnable they didn't even know about it to two or three hours later now they're not only in the west end they're not only in bond street they're from their front door to west end central is exactly 186 yards who would have the audacity to sneak underneath the police radar underneath all of these it's not no security who would catch anybody doing anything they call it nobody and that's where the king put the he really was the jewel in the top of the ground by getting ashbury the time of the kangaroo gang had passed so there he was taking on the most fabulous jeweler in in london i pointed to the queen the kangaroo gang rides again for one more time so it really was an ego job not about the money esprit has officially confirmed for the first time what happened staff member steve eves was in the store when the king struck a very skilled team had come in um and diverted the attention of the staff oh and i'd like to see the new range also that one is so outdated he really needs a new one okay you met my wife if you will they were in if i can remember correctly about five different jewellery desks and two lots of um should i call them the villains kept the staff busy by asking to see various items i'm prepared to go to thirty thousand pounds but i'd rather not i can help it you know what i mean of course sir leaving two men to help themselves to the merchandise how they done that in 1990 still unknowns to myself it's it's a complete mystery because life had moved on the generations had changed all the latest technology that came in all the security devices that came in we still don't know how they got into the showcases because there was no no obvious damage they managed to get the key uh they made an impression of the key in a piece of damp soap went off and they had a a copy of the key made by dodgy locksmith and went back with that key the king had slipped in to a time when it was almost it was over how and where he found those people to work with i think he might go to hollywood and got a a team of actors and told them they're in a movie script or something you know what honey i think we might buy you a nice fur coat instead thanks for your help fella very good sir on that day i can remember i was in the manager's office when the head of the jury department came came down and said stephen you must come up to the jury department he was in a very shocked condition and there were three empty showcases and three of our best suites had vanished that would have comprised necklaces earrings some rings and so forth three entire suites and this was rumored to be worth about 1.8 million pounds i mean everybody knew i mean he didn't keep it a secret arthur think he ever stopped talking about it and so after esprit the legend of arthur delaney the king of thieves was secure he had turned back the clock to the 1960s those fabulous almost mythical days when the aussies tore up london by day and by well night on mate here's to another day in oysters paradise you betcha if any of those blacks reckon sydney could see us now he would never recapture that moment again two years later in 1992 he was in bangkok by a hotel pool he's got the company of a lovely young thai girl with him and um certain acts were being performed and i think a man of his age it's probably a bit too much excitement because unfortunately he suffered a major coronary during this act and and just expired was brown bread as they say toast as others might say there was no money left to get him home arthur's share of the esprit loot was long gone his friends have to whip around to actually get his body brought back from from thailand comes in a plain box arises in the airport some of the police are tipped off that the the king is returning they come to the airport and they get the box open to make sure that he's in fact uh dead because he's been he disappeared for 12 years mind you they haven't heard of him for 12 years even though he's been coming in and out of australia at will so they go yep sure enough that's the king welcome home arthur meanwhile lafibber had turned his hand to drugs making a fortune importing marijuana into australia from south east asia he was convicted in i think it was 94 of a 15-ton importation and if you want to talk about the judiciary treating you lightly i think for importing 15 tons he got a four-year jail sentence and only served two years pleading that he's an old man frail and needed to be out of jail so even in the judiciary he was able to present this lovable character picture and in jail he presented us a wonderful prisoner and was released after two years when he came out of prison the fever could still be found spinning his double headers at the two up ring every anzac day he made one last trip to england before he died of cancer in 2002. he came back here to tell us that he wouldn't be about next year you know he knew it was on him so he came back to have a drink with us all so a pal of mine does all the supplies there so i got him put in the penthouse georgie gardner was chased back to australia in the early 70s and invested in a small pest control company he died from throat cancer in 2010. he was involved in i still i believe in in some jobs here and there but he was very low key i mean he couldn't move around australia because he was still wanted in victoria on warrants from the 50s he was suspected of a couple of murders that were still open so he had to keep pretty low profile we jimmy lloyd returned to australia and his old trade of pickpocketing in racecourses working right after his death in 2006. he'd saved his money he'd kept his first shilling prisoner till the end you know he had all the money that he that he'd stolen over in england and he set about educating his children and his children today as i understand it are involved in the professions they're very respectable no one's gone into crime the general billy hill was in and out of jail for the rest of his life many thought he was flat broke when he died in the 1980s but scotland yard picked up a transfer of more than 200 000 pounds to a colleague in australia meanwhile baby bruce turned his intellect to earning an honest living in business and has stayed out of trouble ever since bruce was smart very sweet smarter than most of them i tell you that he knew what he was doing bruce and he went it could be he's just straight businesses you know that's where he did his best deals i would tell nobody in their younger days to try the same things what we tried it's not good and it's ruthless and you wind up in jail and it's not a nice place at 85 dave barry is still the governor of queensway wheeling and dealing just like he did back in the old days of the kangaroo gang i won't nominate any of them as the best i'll see how many times i'm at the dentist i'm having my teeth taken out so you'll have to you'll have to ring me back the kangaroo gang are passing into history but the great memories remain bloody good friends real good friends you know we form relationships and for those that are still alive are lasting still which is nice huh [Music] nothing wrong with that do
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