gentle dramatic music
[Adrian] Of course we regret the fact that Lee Murray
and Paul Allen left the country.
And in hindsight, we would have acted quicker
to sort of stop them.
[Dave E.] No one had any idea they'd traveled
into Morocco when they did.
There was no intelligence to support the fact
that they were traveling to Morocco.
The Moroccan authorities would have just processed them
as any other individual.
dramatic music
dramatic rhythmic music
[Sir John] A robbery occurred in Kent.
A substantial amount of money was stolen.
It was all in cash.
This theft
represented the largest amount ever stolen.
The robbers used hostages
as the means to enter the depot.
There are few things more terrifying
than the invasion of home or workplace
at the dead of night
by men dressed entirely in black,
whose faces and heads are covered by masks,
brandishing deadly weapons,
and shouting that you will die
if you do not do as you are told.
And the motive for this crime?
Pure and simple.
Greed.
dramatic rhythmic music
dramatic music
The first time I went to Morocco was with my mom.
And then we met my dad there.
All I remember was us at the pool,
restaurants,
doing just family things,
riding camels,
and we were meeting his friends out there.
I think I was about seven years old.
[Mus] I went to Morocco on holiday to go and see Lee.
Lee was with his friend Paul and
I think his missus and the kids.
I took the car to Lee and then stayed for a holiday.
I didn't have anything to do with the robbery.
Most days we were just watching football,
going to restaurants, going to the beach,
going to the gym.
Lee looked like he was relaxed.
It didn't really feel like he was worried about anything.
[Andy] The first time we were aware that Lee Murray
and Paul Allen were in Morocco was April, 2006.
I would be quite confident he thought he was home and dry.
At that time, it made a little bit of sense
inasmuch as there was no extradition treaty
between the United Kingdom and Morocco.
[Andy] One thing you could say about Lee Murray,
he was quite organized.
He had those criminal associates in South London,
so he had much more choice of people he went to.
Lee Murray's money, I'm absolutely certain,
nine million, ended up in Dubai.
They set up bank accounts in Morocco,
and they were having money put into the bank accounts
and business accounts.
A lot of money.
They might have had somewhere in the region
of 1.8 million pounds in an account in Morocco.
[Duncan] They were able to get that money
out of the country physically
without it being traced almost immediately.
And that, in a way, is the most difficult thing
for crime involving large amounts of cash.
[Dave E.] Lee Murray and Paul Allen were living
with a Moroccan businessman whom they were relying on
to help them set up companies that bought houses,
significant properties,
each around about a million pounds.
[Andy] Two large properties,
one each,
palaces.
They just needed a lot of work done to them.
They were in the process of having that done.
Once finished, lavish would be an understatement.
Allen's one had at least 15 or 20 bedrooms.
dramatic music
When you get into Lee Murray's place,
the walls are marble,
the floors are marble,
very kind of opulent furniture.
Some of it quite pretentious, if you like.
It's not stuff I'd choose myself, you know,
not that I'm an interior designer.
And there's a- an awful mural
of Lee Murray.
I wonder whether the person
that did it had visual impairment.
And then some of the other rooms clearly showed signs
that he was preparing to take the kids there as well,
fitted out with smaller beds.
He's moving everything, lock, stock and barrel, to Morocco.
[Lilly] There was a plan for us to move to Morocco,
so he bought the house
and showed us all our bedrooms.
dramatic music
We were definitely gonna be living there.
gentle music
[Andy] I'm back in the UK.
And as the officer in the case, my job would be
to get a case together against Paul Allen
and Lee Murray in the UK.
We're trying to get the Moroccans to arrest them
on our behalf.
When you go to other countries as a police officer,
you are not allowed to do anything.
That is the rules.
Internationally, that's the rules.
But you can ask the force of the host country
to do stuff on your behalf.
I'm on holiday and I receive a phone call
effectively saying to me how quickly can I get to Morocco.
And the Moroccan authorities were very welcoming.
We were very respectful of each other.
You know, it was all new territory for everybody.
So, there were a number of objectives,
but the main one was, obviously, to seek their
arrest and extradition back to the United Kingdom
for them to answer the allegations
that they were a part of this robbery.
[Adrian] Kent Police have no powers abroad.
But fortunately, there was a good relationship politically
between the British government and the Moroccan authorities,
so the Moroccans were happy to allow us to work with them.
[Andy] And they took it upon themselves to kind of
keep an eye on them and see where they were going.
They didn't follow them around all day every day,
but they kept an eye on things.
soft dramatic music
They were living the high life.
They were spending money,
shopping,
just having a really nice time,
without an inkling that we were there.
[Lilly] I didn't know that
undercover police were following us at all.
We're just going on holiday to see my dad.
It was all just pretty normal.
dramatic music
[Dave E.] One of the things that I spent a lot
of time doing was to try
and influence the Moroccans' decision-making process
in our favor.
It did take our Moroccan colleagues quite some time
to fully understand why we were investing so much
time and resources.
dramatic music
I was focused on trying to explain to them
the level of violence they were prepared to use,
showing them some of the CCTV footage from the robbery.
dramatic music
The video showed automatic weapons, body armor,
some of them were wearing police uniforms.
The fact that they had kidnapped people,
put people in cages.
dramatic music
However, that wasn't what they were looking for,
and I wasn't sure what they were looking for.
I had not expected to have
succeeded in the way that I did.
But there came a point
where I was showing them the hired truck reversing
into the back of the depot.
One of the robbers has got Mrs. Dixon by the neck.
There's the son there as well.
dramatic music
The Prosecutor General put his hands up
and asked me to stop.
I was asked to leave the room.
They were gonna have a meeting.
Every day I was asked how my wife and children are.
And I had never, ever given it a second thought.
I said, "They're very well.
Thank you very much."
But I never understood in their culture
that actually my wife and children
were more important than me.
I was called back.
They effectively sat me down and said,
"Right, what is it
that we can do for you to help you?"
The decision to make the arrest was a joint agreement
by everybody.
[Mus] There wasn't any crime committed in Morocco,
so I don't think anyone was thinking that
police could do anything.
I do remember that the last few days,
Paul or Lee were saying that, um,
they think we might be getting followed by someone.
So on June 25th,
we knew something weren't right
because they showed themselves, really, to us.
They were right behind us,
like right behind us.
June 25th, it was quite a long day.
We had an early start.
And we were very much relying on intelligence coming
from the Moroccans to know what was going to happen next.
gentle dramatic music
[Mus] The World Cup was on,
so we just drove to the mall,
me, Paul and Lee.
It was like a nice place to go,
big screens and all chairs,
all set out in the mall where the food place is.
[Dave E.] Moroccan authorities dropped us off
at the Mega Mall during the World Cup and told,
"Go and have some lunch.
We'll get back to you as soon as we can."
[Mus] We jumped out of the car,
walking into the mall.
Opened the door to walk in the mall.
Everyone in front of us just turned into undercover police.
Everyone just pulled out guns,
started wrapping us up,
bending us up, beating us.
It was like a full-on attack.
Maybe they thought we was gonna fight back or something,
I don't know, so they just went in full-handed
and just took us down with force,
no fucking about.
[Dave E.] Smoke, shouting and screaming.
Something told us that it was probably to do with our job.
[Mus] This is not no normal police officers.
They were like a trained tactical unit.
And they took us down like we was terrorists.
That's the way they-they handled it.
It was quite impressive. [chuckles]
[Mus] And then they throw us in the back of the van,
handcuffed like we were just piled just like bits of meat.
And we was in the back of the van for about an hour or so.
[Dave E.] I got a phone call from Moroccan police,
"Yeah, it's on.
Where are you?
You're required."
There was a police van,
and our detained persons were on the floor.
[Mus] There was English police officers there
when we got arrested that day.
They didn't directly speak to us
because, obviously, they're not supposed to be there,
or they was doing some fuckeries, weren't they?
So they were there, but they weren't there.
[Dave E.] Lee Murray got put in the back of a police car.
They put a hood on his face.
He was handcuffed.
I remember him being fed some chips at one point
whilst the search was sort of going on.
We recovered this gold Mercedes,
a rocket on wheels.
[Andy] Searches happened at the villa
where they were staying.
The rooms that they were occupying were identified.
And in those rooms were found a number of watches.
[Dave E.] I've never seen anything quite like it,
personally.
They were worth a fortune.
[Andy] Audemars Piguet, Franck Muller,
Cartier, Rolex,
some of them must have been 30,000 pounds a watch.
And also cocaine.
And this is something that's very dimly viewed
by the Moroccan authorities.
Four months from him leaving the country to being arrested.
dramatic music
[Paul] This was a major national story,
that he'd been arrested in Morocco,
and a spectacular arrest it was too.
[newswoman] Kent Police had been tracking the man
for three months.
But it was Moroccan officers who led the operation.
dramatic music
[Mus] Obviously, we thought it's something to do
with the robbery.
But we was all baffled because we was in Morocco
and no crime got committed there,
so we still didn't understand why we was in there.
And then they took us into the police station into a room,
handcuffed our feet as well,
hoods over our heads.
I think we was handcuffed to the radiator...
and like, we was in a chain-- me, Lee, Paul,
our feet together.
dramatic music
And we was in the room for about,
I think it was about four or five days.
No food, no water.
We thought we was gonna die,
literally.
We didn't know what was happening.
Then they got us each into a room separately
and started doing interviews with us.
They're speaking broken English:
"Is this your name?"
Writing it down.
"Do you take drugs?"
And I was saying, "No."
Afterwards we found out that they've put the opposite
of whatever we said.
It made us look like we said we take drugs,
but we didn't.
Lee has never, as an adult, taken drugs.
He did drink, but he didn't smoke,
and he didn't do drugs.
The Kent Police knew this.
They know who in Lee's circle took drugs at that time.
[Dave] Lee Murray was gonna fight again for us in 2006.
He was training every day.
He couldn't come back to this country,
but it was either sort a fight out in Amsterdam
or sort a fight in Morocco.
"I'm coming back on a fight for middleweight title."
[Mus] He's a fitness freak, isn't he?
So he's always been
on his fighting thing and on his fitness.
He's never been on a drugs thing.
soft dramatic music
There was no trial at that time.
It was just a hearing.
And when we first went into court,
they said that they was charging us with
fighting with the police
and for drugs found at the house.
Whoever's drugs they were,
they took the rap for the drugs
and they told them that that was theirs
and it wasn't me or Lee.
[Andy] The drugs, they were Paul Allen's.
He claimed that in court at some point later on.
They slightly put our process to one side
and they charged them with offenses around the drugs
and of assaulting police officers
when they were arrested.
They arrested us and then said that we fight the police.
So what was the reason they come to arrest us for
in the first place?
Because we didn't fight the police in the first place,
so why did they come?
It doesn't make no sense at all.
Who would fight 50 police with guns?
Who's gonna do that?
It just didn't happen.
They beat us up.
Lee's legs, I think, was all busted up.
We all just got battered.
I think that was the only thing they could use at that time
to get us held there while they worked out their plan,
made up fake accusations.
They just took us straight to the prison
and we got remanded.
Power of England got us wrapped up in another country
for crimes that we didn't commit in that country.
Maddest situation that anyone's been in, I think.
dramatic music
At this point I'm scared, worried,
thinking, "What the fuck's going on?"
Put us in the hole,
so they can keep an eye on us more.
Lee got put next door to me,
and Paul got put in another part of the prison.
Windows with bars on it, but no glass in it.
You'd get frostbite.
When it rained, the water would come in.
When it snowed, the snow would come in.
Everywhere, there's cockroaches.
You've got a hole in the floor for your toilet there.
The rats come out of the toilet.
You have to put a bottle in the toilet
to stop them coming out.
soft dramatic music
I think it must have been a good two or three months
until we went to court again.
And then as soon as we went to court the second time,
they just adjourned it for another three months.
Went back to court again,
got adjourned again.
And we went back for another three months.
We was in solitary for the whole time.
Even the guards,
they said the longest someone's been in there was,
like, two weeks, in solitary.
They didn't understand what was going on.
They've never seen anything like this before in their lives.
They just kept adjourning it and adjourning it,
adjourning it, until finally, when we did go to court
and get sentenced,
we got eight months.
But we was already in there for 14 months,
even though the person whose drugs it was stood up
and said that it was his drugs,
and we still got charged for it.
No, we never fought the police, no.
We didn't know really what was happening.
[Andy] They were convicted and sentenced
for those offenses,
which then gave the Moroccans time to deal with our request.
[Mus] We heard rumors from family,
"This is what's going on in England."
But no one said to us that we was in prison
for any robbery in England.
[siren wailing]
[newsman] 16 months after Britain's biggest cash heist,
six of those accused of being part of it were brought
to the Old Bailey, amidst the tightest of security.
There was certainly an issue from the very beginning
of the case, that two of the main defendants were missing.
We very much hoped to extradite those two, um, villains.
But we had to get on with the case
as best we could without them.
The defendants were Lea Rusha,
Stuart Royle,
a man called Bucpapa,
Ermir Hysenaj,
Hysenaj, of course, the inside man,
and Roger Coutts,
responsible for tying the hands of the employees
with cable ties.
They were alleged to be kidnappers and robbers,
with a caveat that it was impossible to know
which of them had been kidnappers.
And then John Fowler,
who was the man who owned the flop,
as it's known,
the place where the robbers took the kidnapped victims
before the robbery and divided up the money.
And then there was Michelle Hogg,
who had prepared the prosthetic masks,
and a man called Borer,
who had helped to change the identity of a post office van,
which the kidnappers used for the purposes
of the conspiracies.
I was amazed by the quantity of evidence.
Really professional villains
do not leave behind
trails of evidence
which allow the police
to amass a strong case against them.
These defendants left behind
their DNA on the prosthetics.
Really professional criminals don't leave behind
the balaclava with their DNA all over it.
This was more Keystone Cops than The Italian Job.
But that said, it required a certain amount of chutzpah,
and they showed it.
[Paul] The Chief Prosecutor was Sir John Nutting, QC,
unquestionably, at that time,
Britain's leading prosecutor.
It was his last case, so he was keen to go out on a high
in terms of large prison sentences.
When Sir John Nutting rose, I wasn't the only one
with butterflies and sort of nerves in my hands
as we prepared to take down the start of the trial.
[Sir John] I get to my feet and I say this:
"On the night of Tuesday/Wednesday the 21st/22nd
of February, 2006,
a robbery occurred in Kent.
In all the circumstances,
it is perhaps not surprising
that the defenses which Securitas had put in place
to prevent a robbery,
although perhaps not perfect,
should have proved vulnerable to men driven by greed
and with the advantages not only of an inside man
but professional assistance
in the creation of disguises."
And I invited the jury to follow the spore
of the evidence identifying the defendants.
[Graeme] I defended Lea Rusha.
He did mixed martial arts and was connected with Lee Murray.
Those two were deemed by the police
to be probably the two main organizers.
Lee Murray was portrayed as basically the mastermind,
the man who was at the center of the plot.
There was reporting restrictions placed on it
because, obviously, at that time he was still abroad.
So we couldn't report the name Lee Murray
throughout the trial,
yet it kept on coming up and coming up,
"He's the one responsible, not me.
I'm innocent.
It's Lee Murray.
Murray's the man."
At that time, it was blowing up.
Everyone was...
But we didn't see none of that,
because we was there.
So we didn't even know what was going on.
We didn't see no newspapers.
We didn't even know that it blew up like that
and they were saying that Lee was a mastermind
and whatever crap they were saying.
[Graeme] We had a conference with Lea Rusha.
I remember advising him:
"Look, don't speak, just listen,
because the evidence is exceptionally
strong against you.
I've got 34 points which you're gonna have to cover
if you wanna get acquitted of this case."
The forensics, the maps,
links to stashes of money,
and firearms.
That's hard to say, I mean...
To a certain extent,
what happened with Colin Dixon
and the coincidences.
gentle dramatic music
For example, he'd taken photographs
of some of the staff.
And they were recovered from his laptop at his home.
That was against the company policy,
to have any photographs of any staff
outside of the building.
There was no report to the police
about his failing to turn up at home.
It struck us that she hadn't reported it
and that he was, what,
two, two and a half hours late
turning up at home.
Then there was the fact that, prior to the robbery,
there had been a system in place
whereby there would be two separate key holders
for the vault.
But he set up a system involving two safes outside his room.
And he was the only one who had codes to those safes
that you needed to access the vault.
He had both keys.
At one stage, he had a top and a bottom key
and he shouldn't have had.
[Graeme] And then there was the delay afterwards.
After the robbers had left,
he waited before he sounded the alarm.
[Chris] The depot manager, Colin Dixon,
behaved extremely strangely,
deliberately sort of delaying the call to the police
after the robbery for 30 minutes.
dramatic music
Colin Dixon had to explain away
some strange conduct.
Colin Dixon had been clearly instructed,
as the manager,
that if he was ever stopped by a policeman,
he must not get out of his car,
but that he must show the policeman a document
indicating his job
and agree then to follow to a police station.
He didn't do that when he was waylaid.
He's not supposed to stop the car to the police
and get out of the car for any reason,
for anything.
[Sir John] Armed with those aspects of his behavior,
the defense alleged he was part of the robbery.
"Was Colin the inside man?"
At the trial they asked me that, and that was my...
That was my initial gut reaction.
[Anca] Knowing the few protocols that he didn't follow properly,
I can say that probably he can be...
He can be the inside man as well.
Our theory was that he got cold feet.
When he decided not to
carry through with the robbery,
that's when others decided to force his hand, so to speak.
[knocking on door]
That's why we took the line that we did
and cross-examined Colin Dixon
to the extent that we did,
because I think he'd been interviewed over 45 times
by the police.
You don't interview someone 45 times
if you didn't believe they had nothing to hide.
There's just so many coincidences
and so many things that,
had he not changed or not done that night,
this doesn't happen.
The defense made an awful lot of this
and sort of portrayed him as maybe the original inside man
who'd bottled it, hadn't gone along with it,
and had to be sort of forced at gunpoint with his family.
Yes.
He probably had something to do with this.
But they had to make a choice.
I think that without the victim
and the victims,
without them,
it is just a heist.
It is just a bank robbery.
You don't have that-
that public support.
We did investigate this at some length.
Did he follow protocol?
No, he didn't, because these people had taken him hostage.
They'd shown him firearms,
stuck them to his head,
and then shown him his child and his wife.
And he was terrified.
He just wanted everything to go smoothly
'cause he just wanted it over with
and he maintained that just to try and get it over
and done with as quickly as possible.
[Paul] I watched Colin Dixon give evidence.
The look in his eyes and the sort of pleading,
"This is the truth.
I have never ever ever been in anything like this."
And he was like this.
The jurists were not having this.
They had made their mind up already
that Colin Dixon was a wronged man.
He's not a man who had done wrong.
[Adrian] These people carried live automatic weapons
and kidnapped people,
held them against their will,
held an eight-year-old child at gunpoint.
This is a callous crime
by armed criminals.
Yes.
He was on the periphery of this case.
Lea Rusha's case is that Sean Lupton was
one of the organizers of the conspiracy
and that he got us inadvertently involved,
getting us to do tasks for him and things like that.
He then became a central part of Lea Rusha's case.
One or two of the robbers had a link to Herne Bay, oddly,
quite a truthful link to Herne Bay,
where the Dixons lived, of course.
dramatic music
[Therese] Herne Bay is definitely an area
where everybody knows everybody.
It's quite a small town in that way.
I think it's possible that Sean probably gave others
that were involved information regarding
the bank manager and his wife, possible.
I met Sean at a party, 1983.
He worked in construction.
He was a builder.
Both seemed to want the same things:
to settle down,
have a family,
have a nice life, really.
Sean was born with a weakness of the muscle
at the back of the eye.
It would just turn inwards sometimes,
especially if he was tired.
Someone actually said to me once,
"I can't believe it,
I thought you were the perfect family,"
after everything happened.
Sean used to meet Stuart Royle and they used to go
and have a cooked breakfast together.
Different things Sean told me about Stuart Royle,
I didn't really like the sound of him.
He said he had some money problems
and that he owed somebody some money.
Sean, liked some movies, especially "Ocean's Eleven."
I saw him watching that movie quite a lot
of times just before the robbery took place.
dramatic music
The night of the robbery,
Sean said he was going out to fit blinds
and that he would be back later.
The next day,
I think he came in about seven.
He never came home at all that night, no.
We had a television in the kitchen
and the news had come on
to say that there'd been this robbery.
And then Sean came in the room
as cool as a cucumber
and said, "Did they say they've got the gang
that have done that robbery?"
And then walked off laughing.
Oh, yes, here's a...
Here was a bit with Lupton.
I've forgotten this.
At 2:36 a.m.,
Royle's mobile activated
as a result of a call
from a mobile belonging to a man named Sean Lupton,
two minutes after the robbers
left the depot.
Lupton's mobile was situated at or in the vicinity
of Elderden Farm,
at the flop.
Was Lupton's frayed patience wearing a little thin
by 2:36 in the morning?
[Andy] We were pretty certain
that Sean Lupton helped Stuart Royle
get his cut of the money,
get it out of the country,
eight million pounds.
dramatic music
That money was somehow packaged
and given to a fixer in Northern Cyprus.
And he arranged for the money to be flown out as cargo.
It went to Northern Cyprus,
where it was delivered to the fixer.
And he was to launder it for Stuart Royle.
He didn't.
He nicked it.
dramatic music
[Therese] Six o'clock in the morning.
We were in bed.
The doorbell went
and I remember Sean said to me,
"You know what this is, don't you?"
And I said, "No."
Sean did have a smile on his face
when he was talking to the police.
He seemed very laid back about everything,
not worried at all.
I remember Dad walking up the stairs,
going to get changed, um,
no glance back, nothing.
Walked back down the stairs after he'd got changed,
and I heard them say that,
"You are being arrested on conspiracy to kidnap and rob."
They dug through the garden,
tore up all the carpets.
[Therese] They found 10,450 pounds.
Sean was arrested and put on police bail,
which means you don't pay any money.
You just have to report at certain times
to the police station.
It was December the 12th, 2006, in the morning.
The children were at school.
Sean, he went to work,
left,
and never came back.
[Jasmine] Dad was always there in the morning
to do breakfast with us,
but this morning, he wasn't.
"Something's not right.
Dad isn't home."
He went missing two weeks before Christmas.
Never heard from him again.
Police informed me that he'd spent his last day
with a prostitute.
There were bits of information regarding drugs,
dealing of drugs,
that came to light.
Basically learned that I'd obviously been living
with two different people.
I was having a breakdown at that time.
Sean Lupton disappeared off the face of the earth.
We had an interest in him and wanted to talk to him.
He'd left his wife and his kids, just abandoned them, gone.
dramatic music
[Paul] During the trial, we were picking up certain vibes
outside court amongst various lawyers
that there's something up here.
What happened was that the prosecution asked
for an adjournment.
We had very substantial evidence of
conspiracy to kidnap
and conspiracy to rob.
The problem in the case was
that we did not know which
of the defendants had actually achieved the kidnapping.
And then the other problem was that we could not,
with any certainty,
associate any particular role
to any of the defendants in the robbery itself.
We could make an educated guess,
but the jury longed to be told
who did what.
And that was really where Miss Hogg
came in.
Her counsel came to me
during the closing stages of the case
and told me that she was willing to give evidence.
Without her,
their case was not watertight.
[Sir John] Those who had been kidnappers were disguised
by Miss Hogg,
and she was able to reveal who they were.
She was potentially a very valuable witness.
[William] She would only give evidence for the prosecution
if she was found not guilty.
Her defense, as always, was, "Yes, I did it.
No, I didn't know they were going to commit a robbery."
I do not resile
from what I said to the jury at the outset,
which was that she knew what she was about.
Such men do not risk an associate of the
significance of Miss Hogg
without revealing what they're doing.
So it was a deal.
It was set a thief to catch a thief.
It was, um, unashamedly an agreement
between Bill and I.
We then had to, of course, go back into court.
Now, I sent a message to the judge
and asked for a good reason
that she not go into the dock that day
but stand at the back of court.
[Sir John] It's a significant regret
that I couldn't see the faces of the defendants.
But I then announced
that the Crown was offering no further evidence
against Miss Hogg
and that we were calling Miss Hogg
as a witness for the prosecution.
The moment he said that,
the cat was out of the bag.
[Andy] She walked across the floor to the witness box,
mid-trial.
That was an historical moment in one
of the biggest trials in criminal history.
"Thou shalt not grass" is the 11th Commandment
of criminal.
Grass is somebody who informs.
She was breaking the underworld code,
and that's--
she was putting her life in danger,
even to the extent
that she would be naming those not in the dock,
like Lee Murray and others,
who she had also made up,
and the danger that they would pose to her.
She was providing the key information
that would lead to their conviction.
[Graeme] The phrase we use over here is
she went Queen's Evidence.
She becomes effectively, as they say, a grass,
with all that may follow from that in terms
of who she might have upset as a result of doing so.
[William] And she could effectively destroy their cases
and ensure their conviction.
She was their biggest problem in that case.
Michelle Hogg was a poor little thing.
It wasn't until I called her as a witness
that I really appreciated
what a pathetic, uh,
creature she was.
She moaned and wailed.
She got very easily upset.
She cried in the witness box,
never a good thing.
She had undoubtedly
got herself involved
in something which was
way above her pay grade.
[Paul] She shook.
Her hands were shaking.
Her voice was shaking.
She was totally not just white but gray,
a sight of a woman in fear.
She went through an absolute torturous
hours and hours of cross examination.
[Graeme] "You're saying that you're
innocent of these offenses.
I don't believe you.
Sir John Nutting, who sits right next to me,
doesn't believe you.
What do you say about that?
You'd do anything to get out of being prosecuted
and ending up in prison."
[Sir John] Miss Hogg's identification
of those to whom she applied prosthetic masks,
included Murray,
Rusha,
and Patterson.
Keyinde Patterson had a twin,
and that presented real problems in relation
to the DNA evidence, for example.
[Andy] Kane was the man going into the depot
with Colin Dixon, the kidnapper.
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She sort of made Lee Murray and Patterson...
She gave them a designer stubble look,
applied a latex nose to Lea Rusha.
He didn't like it.
And then she just lists Stuart Royle,
Jetmir Bucpapa,
Roger Coutts, and Allen.
[Andy] She names all of them.
She doesn't name John Fowler.
Well, she can't, because he wasn't there.
Everything she told us
fit every defendant,
exactly what we knew about them.
Everything we had found out through hard work,
collecting evidence,
following the spider's web to the end,
was found to be justified and correct.
[newswoman] Good evening.
It was Britain's biggest cash robbery,
and today five men have been found guilty
of stealing 53 million pounds
from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge in Kent.
[Andy] The jury returned guilty verdicts
on all other than John Fowler and Keith Borer.
[Sir John] John Fowler, who was acquitted,
he certainly did things to, um,
assist the robbers.
[Paul] He persuaded the jury
that he had no idea what was going on,
no idea.
[Andy] He'd hired a legitimate lorry,
seven-and-a-half ton Renault Midlum.
But, obviously, Mr. Fowler didn't know anything
about the fact that they had five armed robbers
and three hostages in his compound next to his house.
Um...
The judge gave Royle, Rusha,
Bucpapa, and Coutts,
what we call an indeterminate sentence
for public protection.
They go to prison
and it's indeterminate the length of time
they spend in there, but they have a minimum tariff,
and their minimum tariff was 15 years each.
Michelle Hogg has gone into witness protection
because she's given
Queen's Evidence on behalf of the Crown,
which has led to the conviction of these men.
[Paul] There were certainly stories
of a seven-million-pound contract that would be
taken out on her life, presumably by those
not before the court who,
if they could take out a key witness like Michelle Hogg,
it would be less chance of being convicted.
[people yelling]
[woman] Just fuck off, the lot of you!
God, leave us alone! -Okay, okay, okay.
[woman] Just leave us alone!
Stop it!
Just stop taking her photo.
We don't want it.
We'll stop. -Turn it off!
[Nicola] My personal opinion is that was concocted
to imply that it was Lee.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
He was fighting to survive in prison.
[Dave E.] The intention was to extradite both Paul Allen
and Lee Murray back-back to Kent.
We became aware that Lee Murray could ask
for Moroccan nationality,
and that would hinder the process.
Murray said,
"I'm Moroccan.
My father's Moroccan,
so therefore I am a Moroccan."
In Moroccan law, that is true.
If anybody is Moroccan,
they will not extradite them.
It went all the way to the Moroccan Supreme Court.
[newsman] To Morocco now, where judges are set
to decide today whether a key suspect
in Britain's biggest cash robbery will be extradited.
I'm Morocco.
My son is Morocco.
That I can say.
[newsman] Murray's family and friends
flew to the Moroccan capital to await the judge's decision.
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[Lilly] When I went back to Morocco,
we stayed, I think, for a couple of months.
My dad was in prison then.
And I remember having to go see him,
having to leave him there,
being so young
and not knowing what's going on
and why can't my dad come home,
and it was literally the worst thing ever.
[newsman] Authorities in Rabat have determined
he is a Moroccan citizen.
As such, he can't be extradited,
foiling a bid by Kent Police
to return him to Britain to face questioning
over the country's biggest-ever cash haul.
[Andy] They said, "You can't have Lee Murray.
You can have Paul Allen."
They sign him over to us.
Never been done, there wasn't any extradition treaty.
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[Mus] There's no extradition treaty between
England and Morocco that I've heard of.
We don't know. [chuckles]
[siren wailing]
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[Nicola] When Paul was extradited,
they held a trial within a trial
to test the evidence gathered in Morocco.
I've read all the transcripts between Paul's barrister
and Mick Judge.
Mick Judge was the senior investigating officer
in this robbery.
[Nicola] It is clear from those transcripts,
Kent Police put Lee and Paul
under surveillance 24 hours a day.
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Lee Murray was first surveilled,
first watched by police before his actual arrest
because of a routine international police tool,
which is gathering as much evidence as possible.
It all depends on the quality of the relationship
with the given country.
The UK is one of the countries
that Morocco has a great relationship with,
so friends do help friends.
[Nicola] Police in Morocco, they weren't, you know,
looking at the newspapers thinking,
"Oh, we need to follow these guys."
There would be no reason for them to do it.
They did not commit a crime in Morocco.
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[Giles] There are a number of areas where the police
would appear to have acted unlawfully.
It certainly appears
that the Kent Police were ordering the Moroccans
to carry out surveillance on their own behalf.
I believe that the Kent Police were clearly operating
in a foreign country.
It's not allowed.
In that transcript, it's really strange
that they would be only asking for the arrest of Lee.
They knew that they weren't allowed
to do what they were doing.
They didn't want to look like they were
seeking the arrest of Paul
when there's not hard evidence.
They knew that they could do what they'd done to us
and have no comeback from it because
they're in Morocco.
At the end of it, we had a hung jury,
which was very unusual.
We then said, "Right, we will prosecute him again."
Allen, as we know, then came back some months later
and pleaded guilty to both the conspiracy charges,
kidnap and robbery,
but on a specific basis
as to his participation.
[Andy] The only basis of plea was that we accepted
that we couldn't prove he was in the depot.
We know who he was in there.
I've told you it's Hoodie.
And that is Paul Allen.
I am certain,
bet my life on it,
but,
can we prove it
beyond reasonable doubt
in a court of law?
Probably not.
He was given 18 years.
They counted his time in Morocco towards that
because we were clearly behind his arrest in Morocco.
He came out and has subsequently been involved
in other criminality.
In 2019 he was shot
and is now paralyzed as a result.
He now has a reputation, doesn't he?
He's the man that took part in one of the biggest robberies
in world history.
And he will use that.
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We've still got this issue with Lee Murray running,
so what do we do?
[Dave E.] Prosecutor General informed me
that Lee Murray lawfully gained Moroccan citizenship,
so at that point, I had to buy some legal manuals.
[Andy] Dave Ecuyer was a switched-on cookie
and a French speaker, and he said,
"I'm gonna get a copy of the Moroccan Penal Code."
[Dave E.] We do not extradite foreign nationals.
However, we will accept a request for prosecution
on the behalf of a foreign jurisdiction.
We could look at instigating judicial proceedings in Morocco
for the offenses committed in-in the UK.
He said, "Why don't I file a report of the crime
at the Securitas robbery in Morocco?"
I said, "Sounds like a plan."
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We sent a lot of the evidence to one of their senior judges,
and he came to this country
and we briefed him on the whole case.
[Dave E.] You know, we were able to put the evidence
in a way that was acceptable
to the Ministry of Justice in Morocco.
[Reda] The Moroccans culturally do not like very violent crimes.
So the fact that those cages were used
and shown to the Moroccan authorities
probably played a big role
in deciding to prosecute in Morocco.
[Nicola] Morocco got all of the bad bits.
He couldn't defend himself against any of it.
[Reda] I believe that the lawyers, previous lawyers,
of Lee Murray, they were not thinking
that there would be so much UK pressure
to try him to Morocco.
Morocco, and usually countries
that have legal Latin tradition,
follow what we call an inquisitorial system.
The people will not decide on whether you're guilty or not,
the judge will,
with an absolute discretionary power.
There is no jury system.
There is no cross-examination.
If you tell a judge,
"Your Honor, this person could not have killed this person
because they were 100 miles away,
and I have 12 witnesses who can attest to that,
that we were in a party together."
"Thank you very much, but I'm not interested
in your witnesses.
Move on."
The judge will be more prone
to defer to the prosecution
rather than to the defense.
I feel, and most lawyers in Morocco
almost unanimously will feel,
very inferior and powerless
in front of the judge.
[Paul] I was astounded to hear
that the Moroccan authorities were prepared
to put him on trial, at their own expense,
for a crime that was committed elsewhere.
It is almost unheard of for a British citizen
to be charged in a foreign country
for a crime committed in the United Kingdom.
And the circumstances in which we
in this country can try people
for crimes abroad are extremely limited
and confined primarily to war crimes
and to child sex offenses.
I personally don't know of any other case
where a Moroccan has been
tried in Morocco for a crime committed abroad.
It makes the Lee Murray quite unique,
quite unique.
[Andy] They found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years
in prison in Morocco.
We thought that was a bit light
because he was the leader of the gang.
He was the main man sort of thing.
And we were a bit disturbed at that.
We asked what our recourse was to this.
And the answer was that our only recourse was
to appeal the leniency of the sentence.
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[Reda] In Morocco, in criminal matters,
the prosecution automatically appeals the case
all the time.
You can pretty much be assured
that the sentence will be increased.
[Andy] They came back and said,
"Yes, the sentence was wrong.
It was too lenient and we sentenced him to 25 years."
[Nicola] 25 years,
and there's no early release in Morocco.
There's no such thing as parole, it's out.
You are in for a long time and you will ne--
you're not going to get out.
I think the biggest mistake that Lee Murray made
is that he invoked his Moroccan citizenship,
because had he not done that,
he would have been extradited to the UK.
And from what I know,
he would have gotten a much lighter sentence
for this bank robbery.
I think absolutely there was a desire
even at the political level to ensure that this case
had been tried and people were convicted.
The message here is even if you go to a country like Morocco
and you commit a crime of this nature, that the police,
certainly from Britain, will come after you, you know,
and ultimately, as we've seen here, you'll be convicted.
In Morocco, and in most countries,
at the end of the day,
what the government wants, the government gets.
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[Mus] Lee didn't rob a bank, did he?
He robbed the Bank of England, which is
completely different to robbing a bank.
You've robbed off the government.
You're actually robbing the Queen.
Lee pissed them off proper.
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[Nicola] They were gonna move hell and heaven to get Lee.
They were gonna pull out all of the stops
to take him down as hard as possible
and see that he never sees the light of day again.
It is an irony that, in order to escape justice,
Lee Murray fled to a country where he could be tried
for that very offense and receive a stiffer penalty
than if he'd remained at home.
He's copped the longest sentence in the worst conditions
of the entire gang,
from up here to down there.
There is no greater fall from paradise
that you could possibly imagine.
They will all be walking the streets
and breathing God's good air while Murray is still
in a cesspit of a prison cell.
[Andy] Ermir Hysenaj served his time.
He's been deported.
And Jetmir Bucpapa has come to the end
of his 15 years minimum tariff.
And he has also been deported.
In prison in this country is Lea Rusha, Stuart Royle,
and Roger Coutts.
They're coming to that moment now
where decisions will be made whether they should stay
in prison or whether they can be released on parole.
I don't know.
Kane Patterson fled the country as well.
He was of Jamaican origin
and he may well have gone to the West Indies.
[newswoman] More than half of the 53 million pounds
that was stolen is still missing.
So where is it?
As we've heard prosecutors say today,
the hunt for the money goes on.
I'd love to know
the whereabouts of the money,
how they got 32 million clean away.
I'd love to know how much went to the West Indies,
to Keyinde Patterson.
I'd love to know whether Hysenaj
took possession of his money.
I'd love to know where Royle's share is.
I'd love to know the whereabouts of that 32 million quid.
It just seems to have disappeared into the ether.
How do you lose 32 million pounds without a trace?
That's one of the mysteries of this case.
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[Jasmine] I was working at a bar in Whitstable.
There was a lad that came in and said,
"Oh, I've been with your dad in Cyprus."
"Excuse me?"
He said that they were doing building works out there,
which would fit because Dad was a builder,
that they were in bars laughing and joking.
I couldn't believe it, because at that point,
we didn't know whether he's dead or alive.
I find it really hard to accept it.
I don't know why
because they've got enough evidence there
that he's done it.
I know he has.
I find it really hard to accept that he did that.
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[Therese] There aren't many men who do crimes
and completely cut their children off.
They might not bother with their wives.
Not many of them would completely cut their
own children off like that.
Why did he never contact us?
If you've got that much money around you,
surely it's easy to get some sort of message across.
What did we do so wrong
that we weren't enough for him to stay?
[Andy] Sean Lupton is a person of interest.
We're pretty certain that he is out there.
We're still looking for him.
He handled Stuart Royle's cash.
The fact that it was stolen, again,
by people that you may class
as Turkish mafia, is irrelevant.
The crime was committed by Sean Lupton.
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[Nicola] They know there's somebody walking around
out there in Cyprus that they show no interest in
doing the same to what they did to Lee,
it's strange to me.
It's really strange.
I feel like they only wanted Lee.
The guy was Lee.
They didn't care about anyone else.
This investigation is not closed.
Eventually, those people will be tracked down
and we will convict them.
[Nicola] Lee did deserve to go to prison for his role.
Nobody condones what happened.
But at the same time,
I don't condone, like,
extremely harsh sentences, you know.
I do believe in second chances
and I do believe that Lee is someone who's
worthy of a second chance.
In 2009,
Lee and Siobhan got divorced
after he was in prison.
People were falling away.
The more we spoke,
we just naturally fell in love.
It just, like, evolved.
It just naturally...
it just happened.
I always say, "Why did you do that?
It's so stupid.
It's the stupidest thing."
And he'll say, "If I didn't do this,
me and you wouldn't be together."
Like, you know, so
there's some positives there,
and you have to take the positives where you can
and make the most of it, I guess.
I only asked my dad once about the robbery.
And he just said it was just a massive mistake,
and now he's paying the massive price for it.
He did just really wanna be a UFC fighter,
and that's what he wanted people to see him as.
[Fryklund] He made his own path.
I mean, I'm sure it feels amazing too to be able
to mastermind, you know, the biggest robbery
in world history and be that type of-
be that type of figure,
and, I mean, God, it's like everyone wants
their own theme music walking around, you know?
When they go to CVS and shit like that.
You know what I mean?
But you really got to listen hard.
It's really not playing.
Do you know what I mean?
But if you believe it's playing, I mean,
you can get caught up in that game.
And as long as you keep the music up loud enough,
the rest of the world doesn't play that game.
And there's a reason for it, you know.
It doesn't fuckin' last long. [chuckles]
[Anca] Was it worth it, you done this?
I mean, that moment is, uh,
it will be with me forever.
[Tony] I don't think you're ever gonna get away
from it completely.
It's part of my life.
I can't not acknowledge it.
But I just try to forget it
and move on with the more important things.
[Alun] The potential there was for people
to be traumatized long term.
For what?
You know, for money.
If you've got that kind of talent,
you should have used that, you know, properly,
used it the right way.
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[Dave E.] Lee Murray was prosecuted outside
the jurisdiction of England and Wales.
We did a good job in very difficult circumstances.
We were able to get the main offenders.
Ultimately, it's not my decision
whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing.
My job is to make sure
that people do face the criminal justice system.
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[Andy] Pardon the phrase, but you can piss off an individual.
You can piss off a company.
You can piss off an organization.
But do not piss off a government.
They will give you all the resources they have to hand
to assist you to get their money back.
That was one thing
that hopefully these robbers have learned.
But I've certainly learned it.
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[Reda] He should have been prosecuted somewhere.
However, nobody has died.
Nobody was maimed.
Morocco should have given him
about the same sentences,
or a little bit more, than he would have gotten in the UK.
People still think that Lee's some sort of connected
with the money still.
He's living like a king.
He can't be in a Third World country
and have that sort of money and not have freedom.
For his whole sentence,
he's just been in solitary confinement.
To do 25 years full stretch in Morocco
is something you would never wish
for your worst nightmare, mate.
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[Terry] Know the man, know the beast he was.
Yeah.
And if you really knew him,
if you really truly knew him,
there's a lot of people that did know him would agree
with what I said:
he was a gentleman, a fuckin' gentleman.
I think- I think we--
the only interactions we had was via letters.
And that was it.
And it was, "I'm hoping that the King of Morocco,
because I'm half Moroccan, you know,
will-will be lenient upon me and get me out earlier."
I think a lot of people wrote letters to the King
and things like that, but to no avail.
No early release program.
You just, if the King pardons you then, yeah,
and thinks you're worthy of a second chance,
then sometimes that's extended to you.
I will 100% wait.
There is no shadow of a doubt that I will wait
every year of the next 12 years.
If I have to, I will.
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