Obituary: Ronnie Biggs
18th December 2013
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British criminal Ronnie Biggs, most famously known for his part in the Great Train Robbery in 1963, has died aged 84.
He was part of the fifteen-man gang that orchestrated the robbery of a Glasgow to London mail train on 8th August 1963, escaping with £2.6m (worth around £50m in today’s money). His infamous celebrity status came much later when he was on the run from the authorities, consistently finding legal loopholes around the world to avoid arrest.
Ronald Arthur Biggs, born in South London on the 8th August 1929, spent much of World War Two as an evacuee in Cornwall, before entering a career in petty thieving. He found himself being dishonourably discharged from the RAF after two years for breaking into a chemist’s shop, before going on to steal a car a month later. At 21, he took part in a bungled raid on a bookie’s office.
Biggs approached Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind behind the scandal, for a loan, only to find he had the planning of an elaborate train robbery in mind. Despite being the most well-known of members, Biggs only played a relatively small role in the robbery itself. He was responsible for recruiting a retired train driver to take the controls, but things didn’t go to plan when the driver was unable to make the newer train operate. The two of them were sent off to the waiting truck to help unload cash-filled mailbags instead, and the real driver was hit over the head with an iron bar before being asked to rendezvous with the getaway lorries.

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