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Though
the exact amount stolen has never been
established, it is estimated that
somewhere between $3 million and $12
million in bookmakers' holdings
disappeared into thin air that day.
The Victorian
Club was the traditional venue used by bookmakers to 'settle up' , and following
an Easter weekend featuring three major race meetings, 118 calico bags full of
cash were present on the premises.
The bags,
stowed in large locked steel containers, had been delivered to the Victorian
Club by Mayne Nickless security guards.
Just before noon a man posing as a fridge mechanic entered the
club and travelled to the second floor in the service lift.
He stood watch
at a peephole and, after the last of the cashboxes had been delivered, threw
open a door at the right of the bar, permitting entry to five balaclava clad
accomplices carrying pistols and automatic weapons.
A guard who
attempted to draw his service revolver was pistol-whipped and told his head
would be blown off if he tried again. He was the only person injured in the
raid.
From behind
the bar a gunman covered the room's other occupants with a silencer-equipped
pistol.
Another tore
the telephones from the sockets while yet another used bolt-cutters to open the
cashboxes, quickly transferring the money into three canvas mail sacks.
The bandits
then made their getaway down a rear stairwell, having jammed the service lift
with the empty cash boxes.
The men are believed to have rented an office in the same building and
hid the money there while making a fake getaway in a van.
This was an
intricately planned and perfectly executed crime, and it was all over in the
space of just 11 minutes.
Such was the
smoothness of the operation, police believe that it may have even been fully
rehearsed over the Easter weekend.
Lee was the only
man believed to have been a major player in the Bookie Robbery to have been arrested.
Police
had turned their attention to him early
in their investigations.
They
formed the view that Lee had been part
of the gang and that he had afterwards
been a money launderer.
They
decided that the way to get the robbers
was to follow the money trail.
Bennett
had anticipated the police move on Lee
but was confident, believing Lee would
honour his promise to look after the
money.
He knew
Lee was staunch and would rather go to
jail than tell police anything.
Police
charged Lee, then 28, with the armed
robbery of $1,387,540 from the Victorian
Club.
Police
alleged that he once took $60,000 in
cash to his solicitor's office inside a
plastic garbage bag.
He was
also charged with receiving $124,000
from the robbery.
Police
alleged he laundered $110,000 through
his solicitor's trust account.
Lee had
allegedly used the money to buy
equipment for his factory and renovate
his home.
Lee did
not panic.
Even when
arrested he stuck to Bennett's plan and
did not say a word and went as far as
refusing to give police his name.
Detectives
got his safe from his office and took it
to the quadrangle inside the Russell
Street police complex.
They were
looking for cash or incriminating
paperwork.
They
asked Lee for the keys. He just looked
blankly back at them.
They were
forced to get a safe expert to cut it
open for them. It was empty.
Purely
out of principal, Lee had refused to
cooperate with the police and open it,
even though there was no evidence inside
which could incriminate him.
Police were never able
to dredge up sufficient evidence and Lee was acquitted in Melbourne Magistrate's
Court in late 1976.
The magistrate said that while the
money might have come from illegal activity, it was impossible to say it came
from the Great Bookie Robbery.
None of the others were ever
convicted and
not a single cent of the money was ever recovered.
There are many theories on
who was involved, and some police even believed that the perpetrators had inside
help.
Lee's lawyer Phillip Dunn, QC,
revealed the details of the crime in the mid-1990s, including the identities of
all those involved.
Prendergast disappeared in 1985 and the rest of the gang had
all been murdered by the end of 1983.
As no-one was ever jailed or convicted,
the Great Bookie Robbery remains technically an unsolved crime.
In 1986 a miniseries of three 60
minute episodes was released depicting the robbery.
Lee participated in the
production as a consultant, and even used his own residence in Verity Street,
Richmond as the shooting location for the house of one of the gang.
Lee was
still living there at the time of his death when he was was killed by police during an
attempted robbery at Melbourne Airport. It
was the afternoon of Tuesday July 28, 1992, when Lee was to take on his last
hold-up. Working with two
other men - a fellow gunman and a wheelman - Lee had his sights on $1.25 million
being handed over by Armaguard staff at the Ansett Freight Terminal at Melbourne
Airport. Leigh and his
fellow gunman, both wearing rock-star masks and carrying hand guns, snaffled the
money bags and threw them into the back of their stolen Ford panel van. In
the rear of the van were two loaded Armalite self-loading rifles. Watching
the bandits were Victoria Police and National Crime Authority officers who had
been tipped off about the heist. As
Lee and his accomplice threw the money bags into the back of the van, five SOG
members in an unmarked van swooped on the Ford. As
the black-clad officers moved, the getaway Ford driver sped off, causing Lee and
his right-hand man to spill to the ground. The
two picked themselves up and in the blink of an eye all hell broke loose. Lee
and his fellow gunman were felled by SOG gunfire. The
getaway driver was arrested after police rammed his vehicle head-on.
SOG gunfire had hit Lee in the
chest near his armpit, the back of his head and his left wrist.
Exit wounds had exploded from his
right chest, left arm and head.
He died at the scene.
Beside his body was a fully
loaded .357 Magnum revolver. He had twelve bullets in his pocket.
The operation that bought Lee
down, Operation Thorn, was started by the Armed Robbery Squad after a payroll
van hold-up on May 3, 1990.
Information suggested the
involvement of a man with security contacts who, when arrested, tipped in the
two men who would end up trying to rob the Ansett terminal with Lee.
The NCA, working on behalf of the
Armed Robbery Squad, worked surveillance on the two who proceeded to rob a
McDonald's outlet in Greensborough.
While the SOG was working on a
plan to arrest the two, they, along with Lee, carried out a dry run at Melbourne
Airport.
Coroner Jacinta Heffey
criticised the Armed Robbery Squad for not arresting the gang for conspiracy to
commit the Ansett hold-up.
She suggested officers could have
conversely arrested Lee's cohorts after the McDonald's robbery.
She believed the Ansett heist
could have been nipped in the bud before it happened.
The coroner accused the squad of
"shelving" the McDonald's investigation because detectives learned a
bigger crime was being planned and the focus shifted towards that.
She also said the fact that the
criminals had travelled to Bendigo to test-fire the weapons should have been a
warning of things to come.
Superintendent Dave Foley,
ultimately in charge of Operation Thorn, said in response: "If we knew what
they were going to do we would have acted to stop it. That's our responsibility
for the protection of life."
Lee's two co-offenders were
jailed for ten years on multiple armed robbery charges in early September 1993.
The judge described their actions
at Tullamarine as being like a "military operation".
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