Masterminds of £54,000,000 Securitas heist could be back on streets soon

Two criminals who masterminded Britain’s largest ever cash robbery could be out of prison exactly 20 years after the crime that shocked the nation.

Lea Rusha and Stuart Royle were part of an armed gang which raided the Securitas cash vault in Tonbridge, Kent in 2006.

Wearing balaclavas and wielding firearms including a Skorpion sub-machine gun and at least one pump-action shotgun, the seven men tied up terrified employees before locking them in cash cages.

The gang abducted depot manager Colin Dixon as he drove to work — with his wife and son being kidnapped separately at the family home — in the hours leading up to the heist.  

After gaining access to the cash storage site the armed robbers held 14 employees at gunpoint, bound them, and forced Dixon to help load money into a 7.5-tonne lorry.

Their lorry wasn’t large enough for the haul so the gang had to leave behind another £150 million they couldn’t carry.

In total, £53,116,760 in Bank of England cash notes were stolen.

Now Rusha and Royle are both up for parole despite failing to repay the millions they were ordered to.

Rusha has his Parole board hearing on March 6 after being jailed alongside Royle and other gang members for the £54 million raid of a Securitas warehouse in 2006.

Royle has been referred and will soon be granted a date.

Millions are still missing from the huge robbery and it is feared to have been ploughed back into criminal activity. Rusha paid back only £1.

Royle paid back just £50,000 of the ordered £2 million.

Rusha and Royle remain in prison after the others were released.

One of those released was cage fighter Paul Allen, who miraculously survived being shot in the back as he stood in the kitchen of his home in 2019.

A spokesperson for the Parole Board said Rusha, who had worked as a builder’s laborer, has his hearing on March 6.

The panel of experts will study dozens of files and assess his progress while in prison. They will interview key people and will either decide to keep him in prison or release him.

A source told Metro: ‘These two remaining criminals have every chance of being released, like the rest of the gang.

‘It’s not really justice when you consider the vast amount of wealth that was made from it.’

Rusha, 48, was previously released from prison only to be recalled after concerns over his behavior.

Rusha and cage-fighter Murray posed as police to abduct depot manager Colin Dixon, his wife and child during the heist.

Rusha was disguised using prosthetics and a fake ginger beard. Fellow crook Jetmir Bucpapa was deported to his native Albania after he was released in 2020.

Murray is now serving 25 years in a Moroccan jail for drug dealing.

Another member, Ermir Hysenaj, is understood to have returned to Albania after being released.

Howard Sounes, the author of Heist, which tells the true story of the raid, told Metro where the remaining stolen cash could have gone.

‘My understanding is that the bulk of the stolen cash was almost immediately divided up and laundered, mostly abroad, via professional criminals in the black market,’ he said.

‘There was never any realistic prospect of getting that money back.  

‘Some of the banknotes that the men who were caught had hidden away in the UK, such as in lock-ups, cupboards or stuffed into sports bags, was recoverable, but the vast majority was laundered.  

‘There was also the cash that Lee Murray and Paul Allen invested in real estate in Morocco. 

‘But once the cash was given to, say, Criminal X in Amsterdam, and he had given back a suitcase of clean Euros at a vastly disproportionate rate, it was the end of the story.  

‘The Euros could then be spent on Rolexes, Ferraris, real estate or hamburgers.  

‘In this way millions of pounds of Sterling disappeared into the underworld never to be seen again.’