A reporter by the name of Damien Lewis
Spent years researching the story.
He claims the following.
In 2007 Damien came across an ex SAS solder by the name of "Mike" Who claimed he was part of a British Government sanctioned raid on the bank in 1976. However Damien need more evidence just some ones unsubstantiated claims.
He asked a trusted ex-SAS contact if British Special Forces had any prior history of carrying out bank jobs? If they did, it was something I had never heard of."In fact, banks are one of the favorite theoretical targets of the regiment," he told him, "although they like to keep quiet about it…
"If you’re the best in the world, you have to be capable of the impossible – like penetrating high-security set-ups without being caught." Banks provide a distinct target opportunity, he explained, one where security is tight and ease of entry for the uninvited is particularly difficult.
As an exercise, it tests a force’s ability to plan out an assault on a well-defended building, and to get in and out without being compromised.On another level, if hostile regimes or terrorist groups have sensitive documents, banks are one of the commonest places of safety. Many offer blanket client confidentiality, which means that UKSF have to be ready to assault and burgle them whenever ordered to do so, or to rescue hostages hidden in their vaults. But were the SAS present on the ground during Lebanon’s brutal civil war? Officially, they were not.
Damien later got in contact with Ken Connor, a veteran of covert SAS operations, and one or two other ex-SAS contacts, to check. In reality, the SAS had been present during Lebanon’s civil war, but on highly classified missions. They had deployed into Beirut from the UK Armed Forces Base, RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, which has a secret eavesdropping site at Ayios Nikolaos, on the east side of the island. They were tasked with intelligence-gathering work in Beirut, much of which was in preparation for hostage-rescue operations.
Damien arranged a meeting with his original source went back to his original source Mike and met up with him in Dublin, where he was advising the Irish military on security matters. This is what he told him the following story. In January 1976, a nine-man troop of SAS (a standard, 12-man troop, under-strength by three due to injuries) was briefed by its commanding officer at its Cyprus base.
The troop was tasked with a mission to infiltrate Beirut and gain access to the vault of the British Bank of the Middle East, to seize documents of value to Her Majesty’s Government.
Lebanon had become a hub of world terrorism, and those documents detailed financial holdings of terror groups worldwide, including the PLO, PFLP and Islamic Jihad. Significant amounts of bullion and other valuables were stored in the bank vault.
A small amount was to be stolen, the operation commander said, as a token gesture to make it look like a genuine robbery.The SAS troop boarded a submarine anchored off Cyprus, and 24 hours later they were dropped off the Lebanese coast under cover of darkness.
They moved quickly to the no-man’s-land of the Green Line, heading for the city’s financial district, all the while being careful to avoid detection. Upon arrival, they set up a covert observation post (OP) in a deserted building directly opposite the BBME.For two full days they watched the bank, using night-vision scopes in hours of darkness (the predecessor to today’s lightweight night-vision goggles). One of the team even opened an account with BBME to obtain detailed information about the interior. They also used pistol-grip microphones to eavesdrop on the bank’s security staff.
Once they had built up a full picture of the bank’s operations, the SAS commander, a young and maverick warrant officer, drew up his assault plan.His men would use Soltam 60mm mortars to hit the front lines in the war, and each side would presume that the mortar attack had come from the other – so provoking a massive firefight.
Under cover of that battle, the SAS force would blast their way into the lobby of the bank, having taken out the bank’s generator to disable the security systems.Beirut was largely bereft of electricity at the time, so once the generator was hit the bank would go dark. With the bank under their control they would prepare to blow the vault.
The SAS – plus their sister unit, the Special Boat Service (SBS) – are experts at the explosive method of entry (EMOE).They are trained to use shaped charges of plastic explosives to blow access holes into enemy buildings, bunkers, ships and aircraft.
EMOE techniques are easily transferable to the business of blowing bank vaults.An amount of plastic explosives was rammed into a funnel charge, and jammed in place against the wall of the corridor approaching the vault.
In theory, the funnel charge would channel the force of the blast into the wall, so blowing a hole through it.Four hours into the raid and the charge was detonated. It worked perfectly. It was then that there was a deviation from orders. Instead of just taking documents, the soldiers emptied the vault of the bulk of its contents.
The majority of the money stolen consisted of gold bullion – hundreds of 12.5kg London Good Delivery Bars. This is the standard weight used by banking institutions around the world. Each bar is 99.99 per cent pure gold, and stamped with a unique serial number.
The loot was loaded into vans and driven across the Green Line, where it was transferred to a waiting landing craft. From there the unit made its way back to Cyprus.Damien was left stunned by Mike’s story. Mike, who claimed that there had been a failure in the A41 radio set and a breakdown in communications. Orders had become confused and that led to the bank being emptied.
The team delivered the terrorist documents and a large portion of the gold. However, they kept an amount hidden for themselves, although Mike says this was in the "couple of million dollars range", much less than that delivered to the Government. In 1976, an SAS soldier’s wage was only £13,000 a year, so the sum they kept was still a fortune.
At first there was consternation at SAS headquarters when it became known that the SAS had taken the BBME for all it was worth. But in time the freelance robbery was seen as a consequence of a difficult, covert, yet ultimately successful operation.In the chaos of Beirut, the money would have been taken by opportunist thieves anyway. No significant disciplinary action was taken against the men.
Once Mike had finished telling me all this Damien asked him why he had done so to tell this story to him after all these years.He answered with a question: if I had pulled off the perfect bank job, would I not want the world to know about it? Damien learned Mike had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It had been 31 years ago at the time yet they was still legally bound by the official secrets act.
In the following months, Mike offered to introduce Damien to two of his colleagues from the raid. In due course Damien met them. Jock was a towering hulk of a Scot, with a rugby player’s nose and a pronounced limp. The third man, Jamie, was tall and spare, with aquiline features: I guessed he must have been the commander of the unit.
They were both less voluble than Mike had been. He had persuaded them to speak with me, and they were markedly less enthusiastic than him. However, their accounts echoed his with only minor variations. Damien had spent two years investigating whether the SAS pulled off the world’s biggest bank job.
In the end he could not cannot definitely say that they did it. But he was to discover that this was not the first nor the last bank job conducted by the SAS. The SAS had the motive, the means and the track record to have made history by carrying out that 1976 Beirut bank robbery.
When contacted by Damien, the Ministry Of Defence declined to comment on the heist using the official secrets act , but the Lebanon job would fit with the credo of the SAS and its motto ‘Who dares wins’.
So Bill perhaps that a state actor was indeed behind the raid.
Regardless other than the 3 no one else is talking.
Crow
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