Man charged over $68m bank heist

BELFAST - Northern Ireland police have charged a man with robbing STG 26.5 million ($NZ68.62 million) from a Belfast bank last December in one of Britain's biggest bank heists.

The man, due to appear before magistrates on Friday morning, has also been charged with falsely imprisoning the bank's assistant manager and his wife who were tied up and held at gunpoint in a meticulously planned raid that lasted two days.

Police in the province have arrested five people, including the man charged on Thursday, in the past two days in connection with the case.

"A 23-year-old man has been charged with ... possession of a firearm or imitation firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and the robbery of STG 26.5 million from the Northern Bank in Belfast on December 20 2004," a police spokeswoman said.

The Northern Bank raid was widely blamed on the Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla group, which waged a bloody 30-year campaign against British rule in the province.

The robbery at the Northern Bank's headquarters in central Belfast and a highly publicised murder in the city a month later heaped pressure on the IRA to sever criminal links and ultimately spurred its July pledge to down arms for good.

The IRA has denied any part in the raid.

In a bid to thwart attempts to launder the cash, the Northern Bank withdrew all its paper currency but police said up to 10 million pounds of the haul was untraceable.

Police on both sides of the Irish border have only recovered relatively small amounts of cash believed to be linked to the raid.

- REUTERS