The Kangaroo Gang's Great London Heist (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] ladies and gents today we have a long-awaited appointment with the good people at aspray of bond street have you seen the security they have there now i have seen a security yes and it is this very security that makes me think asprey is a red-hot go how do you mean well they think their terribly expensive security makes them invulnerable and that makes them complacent so the plan philly when have you ever known me to have a plan the only plan is teamwork and teamwork is the only plan right all you mugs got to do is pull the heads until i get a tickle in my throat and start coughing and me and my little key will do the rest but hey i don't want to hear your doubts you're either in or you can read about it in the paper tomorrow okay yes king you in yes king good now philippe you'll be with me today welcome to asprey gentlemen thank you pleasure to be back the tom's in a case in the back corner of the mezzanine now karen you and paul can team up today colonel if you wouldn't mind terribly being infatuated with young fiona here you can buy me a drink later stuff uh there should be five staff but with any luck two will be on a lunch break now tex if you would mind going general cover for us today there is a floor manager in an office under the stairs if he comes out you know what to do now if things get too tight just uncle tommies and we can all scatter like pollen do have a lovely day ladies [Music] welcome to asprey gentlemen thank you pleasure to be back it's been such a long time to enjoy yourselves [Music] sir sir what seems to be the trouble it is losing time inexplicably one minute per hour incredibly built i know if i watch at this value but uh that is the case well it's highly unusual for one of our watchers sir uh if you'll excuse me for one moment i'll just bring the watchmaker down to have a look at it sir oh and i'd like to see the new range also that one is so outdated he really needs a new one oh i just love the sweet in diamonds at fifty thousand pounds of course you do i dare say they look splendid on you would you mind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 that hits just the right note but of course discretion is is extremely important of course welcome to asprey gentlemen how may we help you today we're just browsing thank you we can help ourselves very concerned only the most brilliant thief would dare to help himself at aspreyabond street the jeweler to her majesty the queen was a destiny or sheer folly that led one man to this moment we shall see but first we should start at the beginning 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 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 they came with a kind of flying panache you know they were the light horsemen of thieves every breath of fresh air actually a funny thing to say but they were they're adventurous they were buccaneers 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 they would take anything that wasn't nailed down they'd go to stores and take everything in the store only they were capable of this really high-class theft from high-class shops you know not just take one item maybe just ten in one heap how they used to do it i don't know they were thieves they were they dealt in diamonds they dealt in money and they dealt in guile and trickery i mean the only people that suffered but there was it was insurance companies i mean let's face it that's almost legal isn't it london in the 1960s was at the center of a global revolution in fashion music and culture australians flocked to this swinging scene with artists writers and actors there came a bunch of thieves who would become the kangaroo gang there's a team of australians who are very professional shoplifters and they're going to shops and one of them will distract the assistant's attention while the second will empty anything they get the hands on into large cases bags and things this will be passed even to a third person and the two people come together again speak to the assistant and the assistant suspicions are not aroused in any way australian police knew exactly who scotland yard were after everybody was laughing about it all these [ __ ] kickers that we kicked out of melbourne and sydney have gone overseas and made millions and here we are still getting the same wages every week and they're living in the top hotels and dealing in diamonds and caviar and mixing with the gentry in england they were mastering all these little techniques though they were they were they were taking things from australia that really hadn't been seen in in england there was a sort of a confidence they were bringing there that we can try anything here because uh it's as if that they've forgotten how good we are that they've sent us out here as convicts 150 years earlier and we're back and we've got a bag of tricks that these fellows haven't even seen they they were modern day raffles and uh because they used no violence because they kept a low level we didn't pay them the attention that they really really merited and they got away with a lot no doubt at all about that you know i mean let's face it all that ever went out there years ago was the prison ships wasn't it and so everybody could get a bit confused goodnight i mean when you look back in history england made them leave by boat their forefathers and they came back by airplane and slaughtered knights bridge and bond street so i would say out of all the criminals that i met in the past they was elite i don't know whether it's something we should be proud of but it would certainly be seen i think that certainly in the 60s and 70s across in in london and europe we certainly made our mark over there and and to agree became probably sort of um i don't know almost heroes in some respects about the way we approached it at first the english police had little idea what was going on a few likely lads had turned up in 1962 and set about teaching the local crooks a thing or two about the art of thieving but within a few years the kangaroo gang had become 100 strong a highly skilled mercenary army working for five master takers well they were working below the radar mostly they were doing things the english crooks weren't doing and uh also i mean these guys had a charisma about them the bank robbers in those days were putting trucks through the windows reversing a truck into a window and then they try and pick the diamonds out of the window where the australian gangs found out the alternative way was to go into the shop make all the distractions that they could possibly and relieve the jewelry without any problems it was a complicated system but it worked and worked and worked teams had specific roles in them almost like a football team had specific uh positions and and skills that went with those positions now karen you and paul can team up today colonel if you wouldn't mind terribly being infatuated with young fiona here you can buy me a drink later everybody would have to be well dressed different clothes different look if possible different accents tex if you would mind going general cover for us today it's getting warm in here it is uh losing time inexplicably one minute per hour i mean it was always um based around the taker he was the general [Music] um no we don't seem to have one of those then you'd have your head pullers who it was all about getting the the staff to look a certain direction for a certain amount of time he really needs a new one okay you met my wife if you will [Music] to get everybody in position was it was a simple casting of your tie if you turn with your right hand you needed him pulled to the right a little bit further it was the left and and so on just obvious silly little things that that made a lot of sense um there might be blocking where a larger guy would essentially provide a screen like in football essentially to allow the uh the taker to move unseen into the store and then of course the other signals you know put your hand on your head rub your hand through everything's all right keep going but the minute anyone touched their coat twice that was an emergency to exit the premises immediately most of the people involved in in in head pulling distracting blocking and so forth were shoplifters back in australia but um few had the confidence and the dash to be a successful taker because he was the one that all the pressure was on then there was the idea that you had to get everybody into the shop then the taker had to do his work and that that's where it was the difficult part to get over the counter behind the counter into the window or into the back of the office and then it came who was going to leave first not a russia stampede for the door but who would leave first so that was always signaled in in the variations of signals mainly coughs so the first cough would come from the taker that everything's cool that the price has been secured and the first couple can leave the shop audrey wow so if you were working with a team of six or seven-handed and they were couples and whatnot it was a matter of getting out nice and slowly and everybody out i do do recall one particular time in in a place called barden martin and we were all ready to to go to work and there was a particular chap with us who who's who came from leica from our area called the bushranger a useless individual but we took him on this particular job and everybody was ready for the cough or for the collar or all of the slow signals and for some unknown reason in the middle of the operation the bushranger sneezed that's you well it was it was diabolical because nobody knew what to do everybody's looking at each other what do we do we stay we go that's a new signal for much of the 1960s the australians operated virtually undetected artfully stealing millions of pounds in jewels and luxury goods from london's finest retailers well fibs or mate here's to another day in oysters paradise you betcha if only those bikes back in sydney could see us now in australia these villains have become too well known there were so few high-end stores to rob and only so many police who would take a bribe london offered them a chance to start again new faces on a much bigger stage we had good liaison with all the stores so we gave them all the photographs anything they wanted we we we gave them and we cooperated with each other and they seemed to be fairly proficient in catching them and maybe that's by the reason that they might have decided piss off and go over to london to start with and it was much bigger and their chances of becoming known would take a lot longer time some of our key figures had been involved in ordinary crime were expanding overseas or going overseas especially to london and running shoplifting gangs and coming back boasting about it and they were they were held in high regard they came up through the school of hard knocks and a lot of them started their careers as you know rip roaring around the streets doing their best graduated to thieving from the wharves then found that they could shoplifting was a more profitable and an easier lifestyle for them the shoplifters became gentrified they spoke with a different accent the average aussie they addressed well because this store detectives were looking for knockabouts they weren't looking for people with uh most probably a small rose in their lapel and and a several rows suit and well polished shoes so they escaped the attention of the store detective for some time these aussie shoplifters known in the underworld as hoisters arrived in london before the days of closed circuit television electronic tags and vigilant in-store security it was a far-off time when retailers trusted their customers you know the technology certainly wasn't around in those days so you know you put aside cctv it was just wide open so depending on the capacity and the capabilities of yourself you picked where you wanted to work when they got to england they were good at what they did and they couldn't believe it as they told me that everything was so available to steal what she had were members of the kangaroo gangs are going back and forth to australia they'd come for a few months make some money go home and they would be the champagne charlies they'd be all over sydney and melbourne um you know spreading their money around saying it's oh you've got to go to england it's the best thing you'll ever you'll ever do it's uh it's eldorado it's uh it's it's luna park it's the royal easter show you've got to get there mate baby bruce stanton was one amongst hundreds of aussie thieves to make the journey in the 60s and 70s each had his own speciality and bruises was picking pockets third floor haberdashery furniture manchester hobbies electrical appliances oh excuse me i'm so sorry [Music] did you see ladies shoes were on this floor oh no love lady shoes are on the next floor down okay oh wait thank you going down [Music] i come from lokar which is the best way to answer this and now here i am from leichhardt i mean not in sydney i'm in london i'll be the best people in knightsbridge i'm shopping in harrods i live in lenox gardens i'm laughing on top of the world how can i be here i could never believe how i'd come off from leica to where i was in a couple of years in london bruce didn't join the australians in the kangaroo gang he took his pickpocketing skills to the underground known amongst thieves as king solomon's minds where he joined the english pickpocketing gangs here we are at lower region street piccadilly tube stations and this is really the entrance to king solomon's minds once you're down in the mines you can go in many directions central line piccadilly line but it is a different world down there i hope it's after what we've got [Music] bruce worked the underground tube lines daily with the english pickpocketing gangs who are known as the bottle firms well here we are in front of the old whiteley store this is really the home away from home for all the australians who came here but the main area for coming here because of its safety here we could get an apartment quite easily without the right identification a gentleman that lives very close nearby by the name of mr davey barry he was always there to assist the australians and he was always there whenever there was a problem he could get them out of problems by the mid-1960s dave barry the governor of queensway was greeting dozens of aussie thieves landing each month to join the fun i had a circle of friends and this and that and uh lots of them australians and uh if somebody was on their way over and and then the zoom lane they'd say um sucks can i get hold of this one can i get hold of that one i'll say well give me your number and i'll get somebody to give you a call i used to get flats for him or she'll get commission off the agents and i you knew people were just quite big in the criminal fraternity not maybe as actually act of criminal you know going out not robberies that but he was a receiver of goods he could place them he could get the money and it kept him away from the receiver without him it would not have operated so smoothly frankly speaking it wasn't easy to come from australia on your own and and find your own way around with dave you always knew you had that facility to get a bed to get a house to get an apartment and to get yourself moving so it's a long way to come but the 60s and the 70s it was quite easy here there was loads of people loads of women the pubs were all flying everything was good it was home away from home queensway english criminals are always going to know which police are going to be helpful and how to get into them and obviously you you've got to have an introduction and just the same as you've got to have an introduction to find flats and things like that and introductions to initially which shops are which are going to have security systems which aren't dave barry was the main fence to the aussies receiving and selling their plunder he also had crucial connections with corrupt police known as the sugar bags who for a fee would turn a blind eye well you used to get your card mark said don't be here don't be there it's a ready eye things like that you know which saved a lot of people from going in the camp the only stipulation was that there could be no violence that's right no violence because the sugar bags wouldn't entertain you if he was at the violence game unless you get away with most things but anything any violence no they put a stop to it with a friendly policeman or two on side there was nothing the aussie hoisters wouldn't attempt here was the creme de la creme you had the cartiers you had the kajinski's you had the mapping and webs you had the watches of switzerland you had famous aspires they were all all there together they at that time were way out of my depth all i could do was look in amazement of what was in the window but baby bruce's time would come learning the trade from our master thieves the number one taker and king of the thieves was arthur delaney he was the superstar and a team of more than 100 thieves vied to work with him his training ground had been the sydney department stores of the 1950s i'm not sure if he's going to be big enough for my brother he's a big man do you have one in a slightly larger size uh i think so i'll just see if we've got one in stock [Music] uh i don't think we've got one of those [Music] well while you're up there would you check to see if that houndstooth one comes in a larger size sure [Music] well delaney's interpol uh nickname was king arthur and he was the king of the crew smooth as an oil deal and he was a real piece of work arthur delaney he was a remarkable remarkable thief but i had the techniques of of being a master thief in many many ways he knew where to stand in a shop and entered the shop he knew where to slip under the counter he knew where to go over the top of the counter he knew where the keys were he knew how to pickpocket he arthur was brilliant at everything arthur was a great student of human uh behavior and interaction and he worked out how the english reacted to people and and sort of the the hot points and the way to deal with people and and he was actually a master at it and it was one of his great successes was just blending in or or getting people to trust him on the basis that he had the same manners of mannerisms and behaviour as they did the same customs so it's very useful oh arthur paul he was they saying reveals good luck to him he called himself the king at one stage king arthur invented 3d people think that the 3d would come from disneyland king arthur invented that deception disguise and distraction well you know arthur came to england as the duke and now that he was in the in in england in the place of royalty he wanted to be a king as well he did say to me sometimes did you read the paper today [Applause] [Music] was that you he'd read about raffles the the english burglar you know the fictional english burglar who was who played cricket for the gentleman of england and and uh impeccable manners and belonged to the right the albany club and all this sort of thing so arthur modeled himself on this raffle's character he was the shiny glossy turned out gentleman and that's that was a huge advantage arthur was a big time operator and that's where the name the king came from yes king you in yes king very very sophisticated and very very good people working with him but unlike the other teams arthur would have mercenaries come in and out he would hire people for the day for like it was an acting guild the only plan is teamwork and teamwork is the only plan no he just used to love it he just gets really excited when he got away with something big got really excited like um like a kid i'm the best i'm the king didn't even know we were in the shop didn't even know i was there but king arthur was a character of his own creation not always a dashing thief he was once a truck driver with a young family in newcastle north of sydney um they were married he was 18 mum was 17 and they had colin in 1945 and then i was born in 46 the police came looking for him so he must have done something wrong then and he just disappeared delaney left a string of children and their broken-hearted mothers across australia including rosina da costa who only found out who her father was after his death uh the year 2001 when my birth mother confessed to me that arthur william delaney was my father arthur was her first love of course and she used to always say that he was drop dead gorgeous and she was totally in love with him the last time she heard of him was when he did a jury heist in denmark with the kangaroo gang when arthur landed in london in 1962 he was one of the best money getters ever seen and with the spoils came an endless procession of women because every photograph i've got is with a different woman every single one he was a handsome looking bloke he's only a little play because it might have been about an inch bigger than me but the women loved him arthur was a womanizer he really loved women now he'd say i'm my fountain of youth and you're my little drop of mourning jew [Music] that's it was such a honey tongue i've never seen anyone more beautiful than you he was the man arthur you know if you had if you had two girls well they both want arthur you might miss that altogether you know what i mean i mean there were just a string of women in arthur's life and and i think they would um you know a lot would wait for him in vain i'm afraid every king must have his gesture so jack william warren aka the fiber followed his great mate arthur to the uk but before meeting the king and becoming a dual thief the fiber worked a lot of scams his favorite was playing the popular game of two up with dodgy two-headed coins come on that's four in a row hand the kip over to somebody else give us some luck oh come on fellas get behind me what's wrong with you i'm willing to put my shirt on this next one i'll even bet my wig if i have to what do you give me for this oh it looks like i'm making you chihuahua i'll give you two bob well you're a beautiful man but you can shove your two bob where the sun don't shine i'm not backing you your bald prick 20 on tails well at 50 on time come on mate hit him up come on yeah he's uh about 200 on tails i know i'm going to put 200 on heads i don't mean hit him up come on [Applause] [Laughter] there's something fishy going on here oh what do you mean give us a look at those coins oh there's nothing fishy i won that fair and square i need to see nothing right you bet on tails and you're lost so did i now get out of here while you're still in one piece yeah i'd be i'd just be a innovator crowd you know unobtrusive but uh you're keeping your eye on things it was ever any trouble you know you'd uh you'd handle it as uh diplomatically as possible billy longley aka the texan and the fiber made an unlikely pair the fiber hated violence and billy longley was the most feared gunman and enforcer on melbourne's bloody waterfront yeah well i was a good shot there's no doubt about that there's only one way you learn to be a good shot that is by practice you know no i don't recall missing now i do not no now get out of here while you're still in one piece ah there's always one in every crowd well now you're poor mugs you had your chance me and the chihuahua are going home we go um then you had the fiber who who had proved that he was he was worthy of anything he had a lot of confidence a lot of dash um and he could draw people to him and he looked you right in the face and you get close to you you know he'd lean over and look and look you're right in the eyes very persuasive play they said the people when he was home would walk down to the beach and he'd be walking and he'd be kicking sand over people's watches and and you know stopping and tossing a bit of sand over a pair of sunglasses and marking the spot so he could come back later on just to have a little collection on the beach just to keep himself going jack was full of laughter jack was a fun guy chuck wanted to enjoy it jack wanted everybody to be happy and his team were again were very very well supervised and lucky go happy type of team it was uh it was a very lovely man if ever he was a spanner in a very very big way he would go out in the restaurants nobody else could pick up a bill it'd always be the fiber would pay for everything whether they went on the trip or holiday fiber was always there to pay the bills he was a big honor so he was a big spender i was with him one day and we had safe breaking stuff in the glove box as a car and we were headed up to attack this safe and the coppers drove past us and wanted us to pull over oh jesus i'm saying to myself i could see five years you know with what we had in a glove box yellow ignite and things like that and elias said leave this to me and he got out the car and ran ran up to the police car and had his head in the window and then he came back and he said i fixed that up i thought to myself how the bloody hell would you fix that the fiber was was really a master of disguise too he used his uh his dentures and his wig as a as a real tool of trade you know he used to say that if you pull a big job and you've got any any fear that people are chasing you you get to the corner whip your wig off pull your teeth out you know look like a you know you're reading a newspaper and if you get to the corner you're another person the first night i met fever was at the rushcutters bay hotel and february said to me he walked in the laundromat next door he said i just got to pick something up so we go in there and uh the dryer's going round and round and he opened the dryer and he took out his wig and put it on his head he just washed it in the laundromat put in the dryer went back for a beer came back the wig was all nice and fluffed up from being in the dryer he just stuck it on his head the third great taker of the group was sydney bourne william we jimmy lloyd who'd been a mentor to arthur delaney but unlike the king we jimmy preferred maintaining a low profile for that he needed a bent copper tool so that's all i know terry come on jimmy i knew more than that when i came in here no flies on you are they sorry i can't be of any more help maybe i can go on how you getting home taxi why it's cold out there you don't have a coat yes i do you'll be wanting something warmer than that i've got a lovely camel here upstairs fresh from dj's price tag still how much i'll tell you what why don't you buy it from me with this better still keep the change i know that he had a lot of pull with old bill all over the world not only in new south wales but in melbourne and other places as well australians were recognized as the best shoplifters in the world and the the pommy coppers knew this you know and they knew they could uh they could get a good living looking after the australian shoplifters you know making sure if things were sweet we jimmy was a veteran pickpocket on the racetracks of sydney and melbourne and it was there he learned the secret of all successful thieves the ability to be able to act quickly in spontaneous to know whether this was on or off or could it really really happen he knew when to go and when to stop in in regards to a job so being agile with his fingers and agile with his eyes no that was a big important part of the fact well jimmy's just an audacious little bugger he's had more fun than myers and he was just a cheeky audacious shoplifter but he was a brilliant organiser he was a brilliant thief and he was a game as [ __ ] in england we jimmy took his skills to a new level where once he emptied pockets now he emptied entire stores he was wanted for a job at watches of switzerland in knightsbridge and i think what they basically did was at a weekend they put a hoarding round the shop they then closed it off for pedestrians with a walkway around it sorry for the inconvenience etc and behind the hoarding they took the window out and emptied the shop but he was a continuous worker whether it was suits or whether it was tires or whether it was bottles of wine or whether it was souvenirs or whether it was jumping behind the bank cannon to relieve them of their tc's this was just a normal routine day so jimmy wasn't one of those people who would plan a big robbery and do nothing the next day no he'd do something one day and then again tomorrow morning he'd be out with the same team looking for another little bit of work yes our next master taker william herbert hill aka the general had found himself a regular guest of her majesty's prisons in australia he had an insatiable appetite for the finest suits of the stolen variety [Music] [Music] [Music] he was he was the a turnover man it was the shirts and the sheets and the golf balls and the and the fashion items and things that he continued to hoist consistently and he was very very good at it so it wasn't as glamorous it didn't get him the um the accolades that the uh the jewel thieves like arthur got or or the fiber um but he just worked relentlessly and uh and so he actually matched some money in the end oh he was he was well-known uh shoplifter that's the wrong word uh a prolific thief that's maybe i mean when you say shoplifting you think of the old dear going in and taking a bottle of milk and stuff there was nothing like that this was planned organized crime he was a legend shoplifter billy hill and and well liked but again a low-profile guy who tried his best to stay under the radar there was a picture that was that was actually stolen from his flat by one of the police that i interviewed and there's billy hill the clock on the wall says five past nine and there's billy with his with his bowler hat and the rolled up newspaper in the impeccable savile row suit he's ready for work people wanted to work with the general um he wasn't seen in that sort of flamboyant um uh you know extroverted way that arthur was but he was a very very effective thief and uh he was also very good at blending in he did like to do his own thing bill he was a bit secretive but he liked to do that anyway but he was training his own one policeman tells a story about at the height of the of the thieving there they're driving down um knightsbridge and there is billy hill in the window of harrods stripping a shop dummy of clothes you know and they didn't even bother to stop this at all i'll get him eventually but it was just how brazen it became he'd have him out working like soon as the bank's open up whilst nine ten o'clock he'd have him out don't finish till three that's when the bank's shut then there's a rule the final taker was george gardner from melbourne who had a long list of convictions for larceny robbery and assault at 27 he was the youngest and the most reckless of the gang a ladies man and a bomb vivo they didn't call him gorgeous georgie for nothing and he was game for anything [Music] so [Music] [Music] so georgie gardner who was a very celebrated burglar and and uh thief pickpocket you name it georgie did it george gardner had a lot of dash george was an extremely good looking young fellow and you might say he well groomed he he took great care of his appearance his hair was always cut his closer eyes flashed he was a more rough and ready character very good looking man look like rock hudson very dashing man and a great man with the ladies back at home and he left kids everywhere as many of these thieves did but he was accused of a couple of murders down in melbourne so he got a bit too tropical so george gardner goes to england yes yes we have arrived the party can start by the mid-60s london was under siege from violent crime the press carried sensational stories of spectacular heists in 1963 the great train robbers had become world famous meanwhile violent teams of bandits were running amok in the streets they provided the perfect distraction for the kangaroo gang when i was first there the english and running side uh baseball bats shetties anything break everything in there everybody be bloody you know terrified they go in they scoop it all up out of the cupboards and jump in the car and away they'd go robbery was the big thing in london at that time it seemed every person and the villainous world was going in to buy shotguns and then just tearing the place apart compare this to the kangaroo gang who literally charmed their way to riches welcome to asprey gentlemen thank you pleasure to be back it's been such a long time do enjoy yourselves the fiber was the brains behind one of their most masterful jobs a tray of diamond rings disappeared from the exclusive bensons of bond street the plan called for a broken clock and a big bouquet of flowers i do so hope you can fix it for us this [ __ ] has been in the family for um simply ages that's strange there appears to be several parts missing the counterweight for starters and several pieces of the mechanism well he did drop the blessed thing getting it into the car i said be careful as always you are rushing me my dear perhaps some of the parts you're talking about have fallen behind the seat or could you describe them to me and then i can go and have a look for them well there's a cog if you don't mind while you two tinker with that might i have a look at some of the lovely brooches over here yes of course victoria would you please show madame our selection of course what can i help you with uh yes these broaches here yes oh i i'll be right with you in a moment please feel free to browse that's perfectly fine it's my birthday and i've set aside the entire afternoon for shopping grace o'connor a formidable thief in her own right was a key member of the fibers team lady grace as she was known was the last person security would suspect of thieving she had a ton of charisma she was very engaging she wore good gear she looked good she knew how to put her makeup on her hair done and everything yeah she's quite a charming person what a simply darling little shop you have here yeah mate take your time my wallet could sure use a rest oh but uncle i do have to be on the train back to cambridge at 4pm plenty of time for that my little lord [Music] would you show me that clock over there could i see the one down at the very back at the bottom down there thank you did yes right down at the back of the tree jack i really do like that one there the one with the little jade heart don't you want to please me on my birthday of course i do my love but it seems like every day is your birthday well it's only a few hundred pounds [Music] [Music] uncle jack i'm going back to the hotel to get my luggage can i meet you at the station i mean i just feel like i'm running out of time oh if you must kid on your go we'll just stay here and browse [Music] can i leave the clock with you while i go and look for those parts in the car 10 minutes very well sir audrey now may i help you sir you know what i think it's time for a drink what do you think of yes let's thanks [Music] to most police this was just another case of shoplifting they were too busy chasing violent armed robbers to give it much thought but jobs like bensons were going off almost every week arousing the curiosity of a bobby who was to become the kangaroo gang's nemesis i think the first incident i ever went to was uh bond street there was a jewelers there benson's of bond street which was a very high-class jewelers and a team of people in there allegedly with australian accents had managed to take a whole tray of rings from a showcase it was a great robbery because grace walks in with a great big bunch of flowers which is uh looks lovely and it's oh even smiles at one with nice flowers and so forth and but it's also it serves two purposes it provides a block or a smother from people who might be looking at what they're doing but it also contained a pair of bolt cutters majority of times the bolt cutters were long and you had to cut the arms and make them short enough it made it a little bit harder to to get the lock off but if it was a thin lock then it would chip off easy just just like a pin the gang got away undetected in broad daylight right under the noses of the shop assistance it wasn't until late in the afternoon when another customer came through the door that the draft caused the door of the showcase to flap and then they realized it was open otherwise they hadn't noticed it pierce goes down there and and uh and the the staff were mystified how had this happened there were these nice australia oh australians really really we're getting some reports about australians is it true are australians the best con men they're amongst uh the best yes just amongst the best we're not out ahead not where ahead but pretty good pretty good why is this why do they make such good comment well they've got the uh attributes of the con man in particular this real wide open suntanned australian face that wins confidence yeah take your time mate my wallet could sure use a rest so mike's have to put put it together it's not just random extra theft going on this could be an organized ring that is targeting the west end and that really started to prove the point that we weren't dealing with the average local if you like we were dealing with something a little bit more sophisticated you know these people were taking property on a grand scale we've lost the term ground lastly but i think that would probably be a better term for describing their activities than just shoplifting jobs like bensons were a dime a dozen one by one the big names fell cartier kaczynski's graff not to mention the wholesale diamond merchants of hatton garden they had the keys to the city and they helped themselves all over town the continent offered many more dazzling riches and police was even more lacks as the king led the charge across western europe arthur was now thinking about europe you could go into the countryside and there would be small villages small towns which would still have master craftsmen uh jewellers with with with stores that were even more um you know open and vulnerable as they had been in england they had a a fistful of british visitors passports they were cheap cardboard passports i would say it was quite feasible that with a false passport you could go to geneva on a flight in the morning from heathrow you could shoplift at lunchtime and you could be back in the afternoon and if their description or information came in that it was them they could uh produce their genuine original passport and they have never left the country and there was nothing one could do about it really but even the best thieves do sometime so it was for the king he got caught in amsterdam with a fistful of diamonds and spent a year in a dutch jail he had all his uh apparently all his meals when he was in jail in amsterdam they were all delivered from a local expensive restaurant or people would deliver him all he didn't eat jail food delaney had a record of something over 130 140 criminal entries during his lifetime which is pretty exceptional for any criminal it shows that he did a lot of jail time after his enforced surgeon in amsterdam delaney returned home to australia to regroup and indulge his other passion beautiful women arthur was back from amsterdam and uh he was big noting all over the eastern suburbs of sydney uh about how well he'd done and so forth and he was you know cutting a suede through the ladies and he met um he met patty at the rose bay hotel which was a local haunt um for his crew at the time i thought he's quite dashing always dressed nice and had his nails polished i hadn't met anyone who had their nails polished before but this was a short stopover in sydney for the king delaney's ambition was to be remembered as the world's greatest jewel thief and he promised to take patty along for the ride he made lots of promises lots of people and i guess he might have taken it too seriously when he said to her let me get there get set up and then i'll send you a ticket and we'll be together and but sure enough it turned up there was the air ticket i had no desire to leave this country it wasn't for arthur i don't know if i ever would would have but once i did i found it very exciting and very impressive and it was the kangaroo gang's weekly hall regularly topped 100 000 pounds anything not bolted down was on the shopping list and as far as the the money's concerned it was astronomical it was driving them mad i mean when you look back on some of the heists that they pulled and translate into modern terms you know it's easy to say now they've got ten thousand dollars that day but that's the equivalent today of over a hundred thousand dollars just in an hour or so and there was a table a long time would be 10 foot long dragon there was money on it that eye nearly right across it it was all different denominations it was big everything was put out to take perfume was expensive and put out to take they had a sense of humor for example they'd have a christmas party the shoplifters christmas party so much perfume there'd be a prize for the person who'd stole the biggest object crocodile belts aquascootems these crocodile wallace and so much once i gave a girl two beautiful box of french perfume for a 21st these things were worth four or five hundred pounds i look back now i think why'd i give it two it's just a barry soup someone took a volkswagen out of a showroom we've got some aspiring sandbags crocodile handbags usually rings necklaces i know that there was a beautiful onyx duck the nice cashmere overcoats i think and i got a phone call late one evening say they've pinched it and there was a showcase there and they had a gold up electric iron and we knew that they were after it and they were looking at it but they still managed to get it because you've looked in the window and you've seen the size of it now it's in your hand and the request was could i get it back for them you're walking down the street what was in the window five minutes ago it's extraordinary feeling we were like almost a kilo it was it was the last bit of gold level no drug could be like that in in those days harrods had a zoo on the top floor and apparently uh some guy wanted a chimpanzee wasn't prepared to pay the price and they took in a baby carriage diverted the staff wrapped the thing in baby clothes and wheeled it out yeah good good now that that is really a classic story which gets twisted from time to time but i i can say with a lie detector that it wasn't a chimpanzees it was actually a cat and he was a margot cat and i had to get the cat because i owed a bookmaker big money about about a monkey uh 500 pounds not a monkey from the zoo but and um it wasn't that difficult to get him because there was hardly any security and the cat looked very lonely and that was another reason why i thought you should come home with us you know he needed a mother or something jewelry high-class luxury goods the odd exotic creature they were taking tens of thousands of pounds almost every day hundreds of thousands in today's money so after a hard day's graft the villains would unwind in europe's top night spots where they mingled with high society with arthur it was just continuous every night of the week every night of the week we're at a nightclub or an expensive restaurant arthur was a great celebration man in fact they all were i mean they were living for the moment they would steal all day drink and gamble womanize all night so that would be the colony club or or the mount club victoria sporting club uh the mayfair club all these glittering names which were extremely extremely exclusive you couldn't get in there if you were just just abundant from the suburbs you had to know somebody or or be accepted by the owner 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 and uh and they uh they had a great time let's face it [Laughter] well fibs on mate here's to another day in oysters paradise you betcha if only those blacks reckon sydney could see us now yeah honey take your pick anyone you want really anyone i want sure paddy i want to know how big you like your diamonds sweetheart so i know what to get you next time i've never seen anything more beautiful i've never seen anyone more beautiful than you this goes perfectly oh excuse me while i chunder you are a beautiful man arthur but jeez you're gonna lay it on laughs sue getting ideas next well okay then my love close your eyes in a manner we're as good as married [Laughter] barry you could be the best man sure dad you never change do you delaney what is it with your big brother cecil did you get all the love from mummy did you you're going to get us all nicked in a mug lair like this you know that don't you oh come on jimmy ease up would ya try telling him that yes yes we have arrived the party can start normally my good man make with the dp what's dp georgie don perrin on you idiot oh sorry george of course course could just go i'll get our girls well bless me prison gorgeous georgie gardner what's up my son and what have you got for me this week well davey that depends on what you're paying despite all the success a bitter rivalry between the king and we jimmy was becoming a public spectacle we jimmy would regard arthur as a big noter and a loud mouth you're going to get us all nicked in a mug lair like this you know that don't you you know you're going to bring us down one day after but at the same time there was a lot of you know competitive spirit between them you know like whatever you can do i can do much better so i think there's a lot of ribbing between them a lot of you know trying to show off their wealth show off their achievements they'd grown up in sydney together they knew quite a bit together and they split up and gone two different ways so it was like chelsea and and west ham they'd split up and they didn't particularly like each other but they played the same game because him and jimmy used to have terrible little rails so they used to start shouting at each other in a barber who's done the best bit of business and everything in front of all sorts of people which is not very you know not very sensible because you never know who could be around dave barry was right someone was listening and watching 1967 sergeant mike pearce of criminal intelligence at scotland yard was piecing together the activities of the australians
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