IRA bank robbers

last updated 8 January 2015

Belfast

A splinter branch of the IRA was behind last month’s dramatic bank robbery in Belfast, the Northern Ireland police claimed this week. A gang of robbers held the families of two employees hostage while their cohorts emptied the vault of the Northern Bank, making off with $50 million. Chief Constable Hugh Orde said he had evidence that the Provisional IRA had carried out the heist. The robbers may not profit, though: Northern Bank is to withdraw all of its bank notes, which carry a Northern logo, from circulation. That, said Orde, would make the robbery “the largest theft of wastepaper in living history.”