Criminals will always exploit opportunities that society provides.
In the late nineteenth century, bushranger gangs ambushed gold escort teams on rough bush tracks in often isolated areas, and stole coveted metal that was being transported from the diggings. The robbers of colonial times exploited the advantages of surprise armed attacks on largely defenceless targets, to flee the scene quickly by horseback once the robberies were completed.
The first Australian armed bank robbery occurred in 1863 on the NSW central coast at Carcoa, which was then a wealthy grazing town close to a goldfields area. Fifteen years later the legendary Ned Kelly gang successfully robbed banks at Euroa and Jerilderie, but after the bushranger era ended, armed bank robberies became a relatively minor crime for nearly a century.
By the 1960s, however, gangs involving criminals such as ‘Neddy’ Smith, Christopher ‘Badness’ Binse and Victor Peirce, staged many armed bank and security van robberies in various suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. It is interesting to note the key similarities and differences that prevailed, between gangs of the colonial past and their modern counterparts.
Ned Kelly
Preparation has been of paramount importance in every era. Both bushranger and recent modern gangs have carefully surveyed the locality of potential targets, before deciding whether or not to proceed with a robbery. Issues such as quick access to bank buildings, and safe departure routes from the crime scenes, are usually debated among gang groups. Within the Kelly gang, Ned and Joe Byrne would create a verbal strategy, after the agreed robbery site was carefully scrutinised. Byrne would then meticulously outline their final plan on paper.
Often the bank target chosen represented a compromise. The location needed to be sufficiently removed from their home territory, so that their raid would be unexpected. On the other hand, local assistance from the gang’s supporters was valued, so Violet Town, Benalla, Seymour and Euroa became likely targets for these brigands from north-east Victoria.
Both bushranger and recent modern gangs carefully surveyed the locality of potential targets...
Once a decision was made, a safe house in the area was needed as a base. The venue needed to be large enough to hold any hostages the gang were forced to take during the course of the robbery. The Faithfuls Creek homestead proved an ideal location for the gang when they raided the Bank of New South Wales at nearby Euroa. Approximately 20 hostages were housed there before the bandits fled from the area.
Joe Byrne
Shortly before the robbery took place, the Kelly gang removed communication links from the immediate area. Telegraph lines were cut and insulators smashed, so back up forces could not quickly thwart their raid. In Euroa, a stolen spring cart and horses helped transport the stolen proceeds back to Faithfuls Creek.
Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne timed the Euroa robbery to perfection. A large funeral occupied local attention on that December day in 1878, so the pre-robbery activities of the gang attracted little attention. The timing of the raid also deliberately coincided with a full moon. Therefore after the gang abandoned their base at Faithfuls Creek under veil of night, they enjoyed maximum visibility when they returned on horseback to their north-east hideout.
Shortly before the robbery took place, the Kelly gang removed communication links from the immediate area.
Overall four young men, whose average age was 20, successfully executed the most perfectly planned bank robbery in Australian bushranging history, without resorting to violence.
Dan Kelly
Some of the general public were prepared to overlook the murders of three policemen at Stringy Bark Creek by the Kelly gang, and those supporters maintained an admiring attitude towards the bushranger group. Hostages who cooperated with their directives generally remembered the robbers as being courteous and friendly young men. The Kelly gang entertained the Faithfuls Creek hostages with an exhibition of trick riding skills before they exited from the premises. During the actual robbery, Dan Kelly hosted a drinking session with hostages at Euroa’s Royal Mail Hotel, while his colleagues plundered over two thousand pounds from the bank next door.
A few months later convivial ales were shared with local drinkers at Davidson’s Woolpack Inn, before the Kelly gang made the short two mile journey to Jerilderie, where they robbed another bank. At the end of their glory days, before three perished and their leader Ned was captured in the Glenrowan Inn siege, the gang still found time to share a few drinks with local hostages.
Dan Kelly hosted a drinking session with hostages at Euroa’s Royal Mail Hotel while his colleagues plundered the bank next door.
Other bushranger gangs achieved notoriety in colonial times. Ben Hall’s gang regularly robbed squatter’s homesteads at gunpoint, and Hall was also wanted for two murders during his crime rampages around cental NSW. He also linked up with Frank Gardiner’s gang for one particularly audacious crime.
Frank Gardiner
On 13 June 1862, Gardiner recruited Hall, Johnny Gilbert, John Youngman and John O’Meally, for an armed robbery at Eugowra Rocks in rural NSW. The gang blocked the road with two horse-drawn wagons they had hijacked, and the captured drivers were forced to lie under the vehicles. Around 5pm a gold escort coach was forced to slow down in order to edge past the wagons, and a hail of bullets from Gardiner’s gang blasted the coach.
Miraculously no-one was killed in the attack, but a wounded and frightened horse bolted, and overturned the escort vehicle. While the accompanying troopers aided the wounded, and attempted to right the coach, Gardiner’s men escaped with the huge fortune of fourteen thousand pounds in gold and cash–the largest takings recorded in colonial times.
By then Gardiner was also wanted for crimes that he had committed in Victoria under the alias of Frank Christie. He sought anonymity by fleeing to Queensland, where he became a storekeeper near Rockhampton. The flamboyant criminal’s luck ran out however, as he was recognised by a customer who notified authorities about the true identity of ‘Frank Christie’. Three Sydney policemen were dispatched to central Queensland to arrest the fugitive.
The gang blocked the road with two horse-drawn wagons they had hijacked...
Andrew George Scott
Gardiner only served a decade of his 32 year sentence, and after he was banished from the colonies, he migrated to America. There the former highway robber and suspected murderer became somewhat of a tourist attraction, after he took over the management of a waterfront bar in San Francisco.
The unpredictable Andrew George Scott, (alias ‘Captain Moonlite’), was not as successful a villain, and he finally paid the ultimate price for his zany criminal escapades.
Scott was born in Northern Ireland, and he became a lay preacher in the Anglican Church after immigrating to Australia in 1868. A year later Scott was transferred to the gold mining settlement of Mt. Egerton near Ballarat. There he became friendly with local school teacher James Simpson, and Julius Wilhelm Ludwig Bruun, the manager of a local bank.
Gardiner only served a decade of his 32 year sentence
In May 1869, Bruun had deposits of over a thousand pounds stored in his safe, and when he returned to the bank premises on a Saturday night, he was confronted by an armed and masked intruder. The manager recognised Scott’s voice when money demands were made, but he was forced nonetheless to place the large amounts of cash into two bags. Bruun was then tied up in Simpson’s classroom, and the thief made his escape after penning a short note that was signed by Captain Moonlite.
After the shaken young manager broke free, he identified Scott as the culprit, but the ‘good reverend’ protested his innocence so eloquently, that police suspicions for the crime were transferred to Bruun and his school teacher friend. In fact both men were arrested, and when the pair was tried by the esteemed Mr Justice Redmond Barry at Ballarat on 23 July 1869, Reverend Scott testified against his former friends. Fortunately both were acquitted because of insufficient evidence.
A few weeks after the trial, Scott was able to finance a voyage to Fiji, where he abandoned substantial debts before returning to Sydney. There he sold a gold bar and purchased a yacht appropriately named ‘Why Not?’ However, before the personable ‘con-man’ could sail away into the sunset, he was arrested for passing bad cheques, and served a 12 month sentence.
There he sold a gold bar and purchased a yacht appropriately named ‘Why Not?’.
Meanwhile, George Sly, a private investigator hired by Bruun to track down Scott, finally located him in Parramatta Gaol. By then Sly had discovered that the gold bar used by Scott in the yacht purchase, was identical in weight to one previously stolen at Mt. Egerton. Consequently when ‘Captain Moonlite’ was released from custody in March 1872, Victorian police were waiting to extradite him south of the Murray to face a retrial for the Mt. Egerton robbery.
Scott managed to briefly escape from custody in Ballarat, but he was finally brought before a judge and jury on 24 July. The ever confident criminal conducted his own defence, but after an eight day hearing he received an 11 year sentence for armed robbery and escaping from custody. After gaining freedom again in 1879, Scott conducted a series of lectures which focused on prison reform.
He may have been an unsuccessful robber, but ‘Captain Moonlite’s’ ability to ‘talk under water with a mouth full of marbles’ was beyond doubt!
Less than a month later, Scott ill advisedly formed a gang that allegedly robbed a bank in Lancefield. No charges were laid due to insufficient evidence, so ‘Captain Moonlite’ and his gang of seven crossed the Victorian–NSW border and headed for Wagga Wagga.
‘Captain Moonlite’s’ ability to ‘talk under water with a mouth full of marbles’ was beyond doubt!
Ben Hall
After requests for free meals were rejected along the way, the group helped themselves to supplies at Wantabadgery Station, after bailing up the domestic staff. When unsuspecting visitors arrived at the homestead, they were bundled together with the growing number of hostages. After 30 people suddenly disappeared, local officials were alerted.
A band of four policemen from Wagga Wagga soon surrounded the homestead, but when they cautiously advanced on the premises in the early morning, they were forced to retreat when the Scott gang opened fire before fleeing from the scene.
A new group of hostages were taken on the Eurongilly Road, and the eccentric Scott put them on ‘trial’ after charging them with ‘bearing arms against him’. The petulant selfly appointed ‘judge’ then kicked his three captives after his gang member ‘jury’ found them ‘not guilty’.
Later, the bushrangers stopped off at McClede’s farm, where they were forced to barricade themselves after police reinforcements from Gundagai arrived on the scene. During the ensuing gun battle, Constable Edward Mostyn Webb-Bowen was fatally shot by Scott, and he and four of his gang were arrested and found guilty of murder on 8 December 1879. Six weeks later, the death sentence was enacted on Captain Moonlite and one other member of his gang.
After 30 people suddenly disappeared, local officials were alerted.
Ned Kelly’s mask
Scott’s hanging was one of many executions suffered by colonial armed robbers, while many others were gunned down by ruthless police officers. A fleeing Ben Hall did not have the opportunity to return fire when he was fatally shot by a group of six troopers in 1865. In May of the same year, Johnny Gilbert also perished after receiving a police bullet in the heart at Billabong Creek, near Binalong. All four members of the Kelly gang paid the ultimate sacrifice for their crimes.
There is little doubt that the uncompromising and violent reprisals from colonial authorities acted as a deterrent to bushranger activities. In any case, potential targets for the highway robbers were decreasing. Underground mining and improved security measures led to less gold escort coaches being present in the bush landscape.
All four members of the Kelly gang paid the ultimate sacrifice for their crimes.
Detective Roger Rogerson.
There were notable differences in the way armed robbers such as Peirce and Binse operated a century later. Target sites were mostly accessed in broad daylight. Masked robbers would suddenly appear at their selected venue. Video footage of these violent encounters provides a stark contrast to the more serene robberies of colonial days. Only under extreme circumstances are hostages now taken. The naked hostility of modern armed robbers towards traumatised bank staff, security guards and customers, is very much at odds with the colonial image of crime. One can almost visualise the generally affable Kelly gang languidly departing from the crime scene in a horse and buggy, as their friendly captives waved them a cheery good-bye.
Only under extreme circumstances are hostages now taken.
Uncompromising law enforcement measures finally deterred most bushrangers, and by the 1980s it was abundantly clear to the criminal world that modern day law enforcement officers were ready to ‘fight fire with fire’. In 1979, Sydney detective Roger Rogerson added to his growing reputation as a police ‘hard man’, when he shot dead ‘Butchy’ Burns, after witnessing the armed robber brandishing a pistol. This aggressive retaliation was endorsed by authorities, and in 1980 Rogerson received the Peter Mitchell award for ‘exceptional policing’.
Stephen Asling
On 28 July 1992, police in Melbourne took this risky process a step further, when the Operation Thorn task force allowed an armed robbery to be committed before they engaged in a fierce gun battle with a gang of three.
The Special Operations group accessed phone taps and other intelligence to alert members of Operation Thorn to an Armaguard hold up that was planned at Tullamarine airport. 35-year-old Stephen Barci, (a convicted armed robber and drug trafficker), 32-year-old Stephen Asling, (who had prior convictions for assault) and 44-year-old Norman ‘Chops’ Lee, formed the gang that hoped to plunder over a million dollars from their armed raid. Lee had previously been the only suspect charged over the 1976 ‘Great Bookie Robbery’, but he avoided conviction for that crime due to insufficient evidence.
…modern day law enforcement officers were ready to ‘fight fire with fire’…
On the day of the robbery, the three heavily armed bandits donned Michael Jackson and Madonna masks, before stealing proceeds from the Armaguard office at gunpoint. From that point on, the situation went horribly wrong for the gang.
...the three heavily armed bandits donned Michael Jackson and Madonna masks...
Both Barci and Lee were jolted off the rear of their getaway van when Asling suddenly accelerated away, and when Lee raised his gun he was fatally shot by police marksmen. Barci suffered three wounds that later left him permanently disabled, and Asling was arrested after his tyres were shot out and he was hemmed in by the Special Operations Group (SOG) four-wheel drive vehicles. Both the surviving bandits received a minimum sentence of 10 years after being found guilty of armed robbery. In an ironic twist, an autopsy later revealed that the fatally shot Lee was already suffering from a life threatening heart condition.
Following this violent altercation, Ansett Airline staff employees complained that they were not warned in advance about a raid that was potentially dangerous both to them and the general public. It now appears that this type of operation will not be mounted again.
...in his adult years he attempted prison escapes on eight occasions.
The surge of power that armed robbers of the past enjoyed has waned. Some of the bullies who perpetrated these crimes miss the adrenalin rush that a ‘bank job’ provided. Victor Peirce allegedly became so bored in ‘retirement’ with his mainstream job on the Melbourne wharves, that he became addicted to ‘happy pills’. Binse was another villain who enjoyed the rush of excitement that bank robberies created.
Christopher Binse
Christopher Dean Binse was a habitual criminal from childhood days, and in his adult years he attempted prison escapes on eight occasions. In one quest for freedom from a Melbourne maximum security prison, Binse unsuccessfully planned to assault mass murderer, fellow inmate, and alleged jail informant Julian Knight, before he went ‘over the wall’.
Binse fittingly adopted the nickname of ‘Badness’.
Binse fittingly adopted the nickname of ‘Badness’. His car carried that moniker on its number plate, and a Queensland property financed by his criminal activities was named ‘Badlands’. What motivated this incorrigible rogue to rob banks? Binse himself provided the following explanation:
…For the excitement, the rush. [The] lifestyle: you’d have to know what it feels like. It’s like you’re on a raid, you’re in control, your blood starts rushing… F*** the money. It’s more than excitment It’s an addiction.
‘It’s like you’re on a raid, you’re in control, your blood starts rushing… F*** the money. It’s more than excitement. It’s an addiction.’
Technological advances, such as activating bullet proof shields to drop between bank tellers and would be robbers, also deterred armed gangs. Unfortunately, most criminals do not become redundant or drift into law abiding retirement.
The old ‘smash and grab’ mayhem associated with bank robberies may almost be confined to the past. But, scores of American servicemen serving in Vietnam, who enjoyed uninhibited ‘R and R leave’ in the fleshpots of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst between 1967 and 1972, inadvertently extended the criminal careers of many in the Australian underworld. In appearance, the substance that the Americans first introduced seemed no more of a threat than refined sugar, but it delivered unprecedented wealth to Australian gangland leaders. More importantly, the heroin that is still harvested, manufactured and illegally traded from South-East Asia and Afghanistan remains a socially destroying and ultimately fatal substance for addicts.
Heroin has been joined in the illicit Australian trade by an ever increasing cocktail of dangerous drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines. The manufacture and trading of these substances became a source of obscene wealth for new underworld barons such as John Higgs, Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel. The lifestyle of these recent career criminals bears little comparison to the volatile existence of bank robbers of the past.
‘Mad Dan’ Morgan
There is no doubt that members of the Kelly gang received rich rewards from some of their life endangering forays, with the Euroa bank robbery netting them close to $500,000 in today’s values. There were, however, many hazards associated with this form of criminal activity. Criminals’ own lives were at great risk in such confrontational situations, and if they escaped unscathed, they still remained long term fugitives of justice.
By comparison, criminals such as Williams, Mokbel and Higgs, obtained close to $500,000 over one weekend tucked away in a safe and secret drug laboratory. As long as dealers were not perceived as threats to rival drug groups, there was little immediate danger in their illegal pursuits, especially if their activities were protected by corrupt police and politicians. Overall, the life of a modern drug trafficker requires less effort, less danger and greater financial rewards.
Nearly 30 underworld figures were slain in the battle for supremacy between the Williams—Mokbel faction...
Despite their more comfortable lifestyle, criminals such as Mokbel and Williams are just as dangerous as ‘Mad Dan’ Morgan, who was arguably the most vicious bushranger of the colonial era. They account for enormous toll of wrecked lives in our communities. Nearly 30 underworld figures were slain in the battle for supremacy between the Williams—Mokbel faction and the ‘Carlton crew’, during the recent Melbourne gangland war. The drug barons are just as amoral and ruthless as their historical counterparts.
It could be argued that the violent deaths of gangsters and fringe dwellers of the underworld is always a dangerous possibility. Victims like Sallie Ann Huckstepp and Pasquale Barbaro died partly because of their voluntary association with the criminal world. For them, the colloquial aphorism ‘if you lie down with dogs you attract fleas’, applies.
Prosperity from the goldfield era and other economic boom times has always presented a new opportunity for entrepreneurs, retailers, hoteliers and others to succeed. Criminals, be they bushrangers, bank robbers or drug traffickers, can also make huge financial gains from the opportunities that historical change provides. Crime, in its many and ever changing forms, will remain a growth industry.
Now, a new and sinister form of gang warfare now threatens everyone—from travellers to workers, restaurant dwellers, holiday makers and lovers of major events such as the AFL Grand Finals. This new threat is that of modern, religious terrorism. The most frightening aspect terrorists’ fanatical activities is that the lives of completely innocent people are targeted. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that the loss of terrorists’ own lives is viewed as an act of heroism by themselves and their support groups.
Crime, in its many and ever changing forms, will remain a growth industry.
These grim assertions are investigated further in later chapters of this book. The murderous aims of international terrorist gangs, such as al-Qaeda and Jamaah Islamiah, represent a major threat to western society.
Over 3,000 lives were lost in the 9/11 attacks and the Bali nightclub bombings. A death toll of such enormous magnitude makes it difficult for us to fully comprehend the carnage that occurred.
The following eye witness account, from British tourist Matt Noyce, who fortunately survived the mayhem at Bali’s Kuta Beach, may help us to obtain a clearer understanding of that October 2002 terrorist attack:
… It happened about midnight. I was sitting in Paddy’s Bar talking … Basically there was just a massive explosion … you just saw a blinding light, and [my] ears felt like they were exploding.
There was just complete panic in the bar … Outside it was awful, like something you’d see [from] the Vietnam War. There were bodies everywhere.
[I] couldn’t really tell who was injured the worst. It was chaos; it was horrible…
