Cash-in-transit robberies down as West Midlands Police tail delivery trucks
Dec 28 2009 by Mark Cowan, Birmingham Mail
GROWING intelligence on armed gangs targeting cash delivery trucks has led to a dramatic drop in armed hold-ups, police revealed today.
Violent thugs traditionally target security vans during the festive period on the assumption they are carrying larger amounts of cash during the busy period.
But police revealed the number of raids on drivers delivering or collecting has more than halved in the past three months compared with last year.
In the usually busy three months up to last Christmas, officers dealt with a total of 22 robberies on security staff.
This year, the number of attacks has dropped to just ten as police again began to tail delivery trucks on their Christmas rounds in Birmingham.
Under the scheme, patrolling police cars not answering emergency calls are being told to shadow the delivery trucks to protect them.
Chief Insp Andy Parsons said: “The increased use of overt and covert patrols has made cash-in-transit robberies a far more risky enterprise for gangs. We’re aware of the potential hot-spots, we have far greater communication with the industry over delivery times and are generally far better prepared.”
The force’s ‘Vanguard’ initiative, which has proved a crucial tactic in tackling armed gangs, came on the back of a spike in armed attacks five years ago which saw security guards attacked, kidnapped or shot.
Among them was Securicor worker and dad-of-four Colin Baker who was blasted at point-blank range AFTER handing robbers the cash box in a raid in West Bromwich in September 2004.
Months earlier innocent passer-by Joseph Nwabuko was shot dead by raiders he witnessed attacking guards filling a cash machine at the Nationwide, in the city centre.
In 2005 there were 66 incidents and in 2006 there were 64, but the following year the number of attacks plummeted to 32 incidents, following a number of co-ordinated and high-profile operations, which led to the arrest of several organised gangs of ‘cash drop’ bandits. But by 2008 the number had risen to 68 offences.
