Pasquale Lanciana fails Court of Appeal bid to overturn conviction for Armaguard heist

A man behind one of Melbourne’s most infamous heists has failed in his bid for freedom.

A man behind one of Melbourne’s most infamous robberies has failed in a bid for freedom.

In May 2021, a jury found Pasquale Lanciana guilty of playing a role in an infamous Armaguard van heist, which occurred in the inner-city suburb of Richmond more than twenty years earlier.

After leaving the Reserve Bank on the morning of June 22, 1994, the Armaguard van was stopped by five roadworkers in Richmond’s Harcourt Pde, with one of the workers using a stop sign to halt the van.

But it was a fake roadworks site and the workers were not real workers. After stopping the van, two men - one armed with a gun - entered the van through a rear door using a customised key.

Pasquale "Percy" Lanciana, was convicted in 2021 of one of Victoria’s most infamous heists. Picture: Supplied

In August that year, Lanciana paid $400,000 cash in a Williamstown property deal.

But he wasn’t arrested until 2016, when he was charged with armed robbery, false imprisonment and seven counts of money laundering.

One of the clinching pieces of evidence during his trial was a recording of Lanciana saying to a witness, ‘Witness O,’ that he didn’t “do” the robbery but “just organised it.”

That witness said they swapped the stolen bank notes for clean bank notes at Lanciana’s direction.

Lanciana’s first trial, beginning in May 2019, ended when the jury was unable to reach a verdict, but a verdict of guilty on all counts was delivered in his second trial at the County Court of Victoria.

The boxing trainer and former professional kickboxer was jailed for 14 years.

Pasquale Lanciana’s appeal was rejected. Picture: 9NEWS

In appealing his conviction on the grounds that a substantial miscarriage of justice occurred, Lanciana’s legal counsel argued a judge got a key decision wrong prior to the first trial.

Before the 2019 trial, Lanciana’s counsel had argued the jury needed to be unanimous regarding in which capacity he carried out the robbery - as one who orchestrated the heist or as one of the five roadworkers.

This application, however, was rejected by the judge.

In Lanciana’s appeal, barrister Tim Game SC argued the jury was presented with a “dichotomy” between participation in the physical sense and the planning of the robbery - said the prosecutors became “ambiguous” in their closing remarks during the second trial.

On Thursday, in a unanimous judgment handed down by Justices David Beach, Stephen McLeish and Maree Kennedy in the Victorian Court of Appeal, Lanciana’s attempt to appeal his conviction on these grounds was rejected.

Originally published as Pasquale Lanciana fails Court of Appeal bid to overturn conviction for Armaguard heist