Conversations between an experienced armed robbery and his apprentices

A SYDNEY criminal offered his services as a freelance armed robbery coach for cash-in-transit robberies. Here are some of the transcripts revealing the conversations the teacher had with his apprentices.

A Sydney criminal gave his clients some advice about how to rob armoured vans.

A Sydney criminal offered his services as a freelance armed robbery coach for cash-in-transit robberies. Here are some of the transcripts revealing the conversations the teacher had with his apprentices.

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LESSON 1: Make sure you get yourself a police scanner
The teacher (P1) allegedly tells an inmate (P2) and a friend (P3) at Lithgow Jail on February 24, 2013, that police radio scanner he bought for $22k is a valuable tool for committing the armed robbery.

P1: But the only problem is, that, we got that scanner, police scanner?

P3: Yeah, It’s [gold] (Foreign) bro.

P2: …. digital?

P1: Yeah, probably everything. I paid 22 thousand for it.

P2: But how does it get, through the encryption and that?

P1: No just, I don’t know.

Cash-in-transit vans were a target for armed robbers. Picture: Alan Place

P2: You don’t need PINS, nothing for certain …

P1: Nah nothing man. I paid 22 grand, the bloke got it, gave it to me.

P2: Has full set of suburbs?

P1: Nah, every area.

P3: Every suburb. Full set of channels. That’s why you can search through it, like when we [got] (Foreign) that [car] (Foreign).

P1: Like the old ones, like they used to be.

P3: [You put] (Foreign) Like city area. Had like city, area, channel, and you get, just change channels. It’s hectic.

P1: Yeah

P2: F**k bro, that’s gold, nothing like, that’s gold.

P3: You can hear everything, everything.

P2: That’s gold.

P3: You hear when that’s a couple …

P1: And yeah, that saved us.

P2: Bullshit.

P3: You know how far they are off for the next 10 minutes.

P1: That’s gold that, I was doing them before when, you know how before we had no scanners. You know that year I was out, when I was, when we were, we were doing everything. Without a scanner, everything without a scanner. Sitting in a car for four hours, waiting, doing everything, sitting there just waiting with no, with no scanner. Imagine now with a scanner how easy it is?

P2: Youse got plates?

P1: Yeah lad.

P3: Yeah. Proper.

During the same conversation, the teacher explained to his apprentices the level of his paranoia in avoiding police detection.

P1: The thing, there’s stuff they can spray on your clothes.

P2: Yeah, yeah.

P1: Remember that stuff, it was on the paper years ago, they said that, isotopes, they can spray on your clothes and they can track you. That’s for terrorism, terrorism people and that, they use it. There’s stuff they can spray on your clothes, isotopes and they can track you from it.

P3: Yeah.

P1: Yeah.

P3: It’s like a tracker on your clothes.

P1: Yeah it’s a tracker on your clothes. Somehow, I don’t know if it’s helicopter, it’s it …

P3: Yeah.

P1: So your (sic) ‘Tommy’, it’s a chemical, like radiation thing, called isotopes.

P2: Yeah, I remember, I remember that. I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

P1: Do you remember, it was in the paper, it was on the news, they were using it for terrorism. That was like four years ago but I have never heard of no one being done like that.

P2: Yeah, neither have I.

P1: But if you have got the hardest surveillance on you and they want to get you. They’ll, some way they’ll get you, you know. Washer and dryer. Dry your clothes in a washer and dryer.

LESSON 2: How much cash to target
P1 tells P2 and P3 about which armoured trucks to target and the potential return.

P1: Imagine we, you were out with us?

P2: That’s why I stress.

P1: F**k.

P2: Stress hard. Wallah. I stress hard. I shouldn’t even be in for this shit charge bra.

P3: I just can’t wait man …

P1: Yeah.

P3: And then after that bra, f**k.

P2: How do you know there’s gonna be that much. You don’t, it’s just a guess bro.

P1: No, it’s a pretty good guess …

P2: It could be a f**kin’, a hundred?

The alleged master cannot be identified for legal reasons.

P1: (Laughs) No, if it’s just gonna be a hundred. What? They just drive that around for the fun of it. Is that just for the fun of it hey?

P3: You know where they …?

P3: Let’s not go into details.

P1: Yeah.

P2: Hundred per cent?

P1: Not hundred per cent.

P2: Reckon under one.

P1: Nah. Shouldn’t be. Why would they leave without that. Instead, like, you might as just go in a milk truck if you’re gonna be carrying that much. (Laughter)

P1: There’s a reason for it. There’s a reason for that, you know? They’re the ones that pick up the banks. You know what I mean. I watched one that done like four ATM’s. Just say everyone of them was full. One, two, three, four. That’s one point five, if all four of them were full. That’s just for one run for two hours. Imagine all the other stuff that, but it could be, once we, once we went to do one and there was only four in that one.

P2: Good luck bro.

P1: I don’t wanna say just in case you go talk back in the cell maybe. (Laughs)

P3: Yeah mate, I don’t even talk in a cell, red pen it on tissue, on toilet paper … we don’t say nothing.

LESSON 3: How to avoid getting trapped by police surveillance
On March 5, 2013 the teacher (P1) tells an inmate who is a member of a Middle Eastern crime family (P2) his top tips on avoiding the police spotlight during a visit in Lithgow jail.

P1: Your heats dead now, it’s not following your brother around. I don’t see (name removed) getting followed around.

P2: You reckon.

P1: They’re all on phones. That’s how it is man. They follow you from your car, from your phones, from your house. (name removed) leaves. Say the c***s are surveillancing him, they go wait back at his house for him. Start the surveillance again from his house. I’ve read it, how already had it, they were doing surveillance on my copy and that, surveillance police …

P2: Do they put P.I’s on? Run with P.I’s?

P1: Nah they’re surveillance branch. It’s called the surveillance branch. They’re job is just surveillance. So it could be an old man. Like a retired copper, a fifty, sixty year old man. He’s, he works now for surveillance branch. They’re, you won’t pick them as coppers at all. They’ll drive an old car. They’ll be driving a, a, like you won’t pick them as coppers.

P2: Are they on talkies and that?

P1: Yeah, they’re on radios to each other and that. There’s like three, say, just on you, you can have like five different coppers following you. One could be at your house, he’s the spotter at your house. The next one will be in another street on you, so that guy, oh you haven’t seen him again, there’ll be another copper there somewhere else. If they lose you they’ll wait for you back your house again, or at your girls house, or at your cousins house. They’ll sit there and wait at them houses for ya. Then again, follow you around everywhere.

An armoured van was robbed in Glebe in 2016 by masked and armed men.

P2: That’s pretty shit.

P1: Yeah.

P2: So where you gone to, where to you come back.

P1: Yeah exactly. Yeah if you lose them, yeah exactly. Yeah, where’ve you gone. If you lose them but. Some, if they stay on you they’ll follow you. If you pump up fast.

P2: … surveillance cars hundred per cent.

P1: Yeah, I read it. How they were doing it, like, (name removed) he was getting followed around but, he was just doing like shit like, just going to the gym, going to see his mates. And like, you wouldn’t care, probably weren’t even watching him. And they lost him. He goes, I probably was just f**king, just driving normal and surveillance lost me you know. But every time something was on, we never got surveillanced to anywhere and they knew, (name removed) was, (name removed) was a suspect from the second robbery. When the second robbery happened. Four robberies still happened after that. You’d think, those were the biggest robberies in Australia happening. You think that surveillance would be all …

P2: But all you own cars and that, it’s different brother.

P1: Yeah, when you go in your own cars and they’ve got a tracker on ya.

P2: … cars that have got trackers.

P1: Yeah, then you’re f**ked yeah.

Prison Guard: Say goodbye guys.

P1: You just have like, you just have the rule that you don’t go nowhere in your own car.

P2: Ordering me around. I was a free man.