Robbers' next problem: how to launder new banknotes

BELFAST - Police have confirmed that more than £22 million ($60 million) was stolen from the National Australia Bank-owned Northern Bank in Belfast and that they are investigating the possibility the theft was carried out by paramilitaries.

The figure is £2 million more than first estimated. More than 45 detectives are working on the case.

Detective Superintendent Andy Sproule said it would not be easy to find the gang, which he said numbered at least a dozen.

"This was a carefully planned operation by professional criminals who obviously had done their homework," Sproule said.

NAB last week announced it was selling Northern and the National Irish Bank to Denmark's largest banking group, Danske Bank, but it will still have to bear the cost of the loss.

The haul finishes a year in which NAB discovered it had lost $391.8 million in a rogue traders' scandal.

The gang may be foiled by their distinctive haul. Of the £22 million, £12 million is in new Northern Ireland £10 and £20 banknotes, which are rarely accepted elsewhere in Britain.

Sproule said £1.15 million was in new £100 and £50 notes and more than £5 million in assorted used Northern Ireland notes. The rest is in British pounds and euros.

The gang will have to try to launder the cash in Northern Ireland and the size and weight of their loot will also make it hard to shift.

Sproule said the operation began when four gang members went to the home of Northern Bank employee Kevin McMullan in rural Loughinisland to the south of Belfast, posing as a police officer with news that a family member had been killed in a car accident.

They put a gun to McMullan's head and tied him up, kidnapped his wife and said she would be killed if her husband did not help their plot.

She was held at another house and was found 23 hours later 16km from their home, barefoot, suffering hypothermia and not far from her car, which had been burnt out.

Three other masked men had invaded the home of a junior bank employee in Poleglass, west Belfast, abducted him and took him to McMullan's house where they kept the pair overnight.

At least two masked men kept the junior employee's mother, father and brother and his girlfriend captive at their home.

Sproule said that while speaking to their two captives, the robbers showed a detailed knowledge of the bank and banking system.

They were "forensically aware" and left no trace of their presence.

The masked men took McMullan and the unnamed junior into the bank in Wellington St in Belfast city centre the next day where they were told to work as normal in the cash centre deep in the bank.

Soon after 6pm (local time), one of the bank workers took a bag containing more than £1 million from the bank and walked around the corner where he handed it to a man wearing a hat and scarf. Over the next few hours, money was loaded into crates and boxes and driven away in a distinctive white Transit van in two loads.

- AAP