Operation Grandslam, Irish style

There was a major bank robbery in Belfast today. Police think that about 20 million pounds was taken (which is an ever-rising number of dollars thanks to Dubya's glorious fiscal policies). That's a good haul for any city. There are various points of interest about the robbery. The victim is the HQ of Northern Bank. Northern Bank used to operate as a single brand in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Then it was bought by National Australia Bank, which kept the Northern brand as it was but changed the Republic operation's name to National Irish Bank. The latter became a byword for financial scandal. It took ten years to sort out just how debased the bank's corporate culture had gotten, but by the end, we learned of explicit encouragement of tax evasion (with special services for corrupt politicians) and egregious mismanagement of customer accounts that often amounted to looting.

So there will be people in the Republic today saying "the only difference between these new crooks and the existing management is that the latter wore suits." Which is maybe a tad unfair to the less scandal-plagued Northern Ireland branch of the operation. However, analysts have noted that the parent Australian company itself earned the sobriquet scandal-plagued, so maybe once again the fish rotted from the head.

A few more points (because what else is a blog for?). The Aussies last week finally dumped their tainted Irish operations onto an eager Danish purchaser. The transfer hadn't gone through yet so presumably it's still the Aussies (or their insurance company*) who are stuck with the loss of the twenty mill. But, in keeping with everything we know about police work being from TV shows, wouldn't detectives Sipowicz/Briscoe/Logan etc be somewhat intrigued at the timing of the bank getting sold and a couple of weeks later getting cleaned out? Like someone maybe planning on a little more than the gold watch upon early retirement?

The immediate focus however is on the possibility of paramilitary involvement, especially if it concerned a group currently under ceasefire -- and what such a group might do with the money. The Ronin-style precision of the operation suggests that some, shall we say, expertise, was called upon -- both inside and outside the bank. A little retirement fund and seed money all in the same heist, perhaps.

*UPDATE: The Aussies had no insurance.
FURTHER UPDATE: The bank had implicit insurance via the UK's unusual currency system. Private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland can print money carrying their own name. The money circulates the same way as standard Bank of England notes but is not legal tender. Because the private notes are specific to each issuing bank, the stolen money will be much easier to spot -- anyone tendering a crisp Northern Bank note might as asked to explain where it came from. Even worse for the thieves, much of the money was new issue with readily identifiable serial numbers.

Christmas Eve update: The police raided the home of a "reputed IRA commander" today. Amongst the details of the search:

[from RTE] Mr [Eddie] Copeland said the police took away 16 pairs of his shoes, mobile phones that were in the house, and he said detectives opened and searched presents under his Christmas tree.

OK, so he's not Imelda Marcos, but 16 pairs of shoes? And under the Christmas tree would be an interesting place to store huge wads of cash. Meanwhile, a BBC story that we read today said that one of the police officers joked to Copeland that "I bet you thought these types of day were over" but we can't find that quote in the latest version of the story.