Cash Found As Police Question Six Over Robbery
Police recovered a “substantial amount” of cash hidden on a farm in the county of Kent, southeast of London, according to neighbours on Wednesday, as six people were questioned over the UK’s biggest robbery.
According to neighbours who live near the luxury manor farm house owned by John Fowler, police said they had discovered the money buried under bracken and branches on the isolated property.
Police sources confirmed that Fowler and his wife Linda had been arrested in connection with last Wednesday’s 53-million-pound (US$93 million) robbery of the Tonbridge Securitas depot in Kent alongside three other men and a woman.
All six were being questioned last night. A total of 13 people have been arrested in connection with the raid, of whom seven have been released on bail.
Dozens of police officers, forensic experts and sniffer dogs have been poring over Elderden Farm, Fowler’s sprawling property in Staplehurst, 19 kilometres from the Tonbridge depot, for the past four days.
Police divers have searched a well and a nearby lake and several cars have been towed away for forensic examination. There were unconfirmed reports that a red van also used by the robbers and recovered by police had been connected to Elderden farm.
Kent police refused to comment on reports that money had been recovered from the farm, but officers spent a fourth day at the address conducting searches. Privately, they are said to be very happy with the fast pace of the investigation.
The gang, said to be six-strong, kidnapped depot manager Colin Dixon, 51, who lived in Herne Bay, Kent, and held his wife Lynn, 45, and nine-year-old son Craig hostage.
It is believed that detectives suspect that the isolated farm, with several surrounding barns and a cottage, might be where the robbers initially took the Dixon family, before storming the depot and fleeing with the money.
Earlier on Wednesday, staff returned to work at the depot for the first time since the raid. The 14 workers who were tied up by the gang have not yet returned and are still receiving counselling after their ordeal.