Mail robbery

Mail robbery is a type of robbery involving the theft of money or high-value goods from postal transport, normally trains.

In the USA, the period immediately following the First World War witnessed a large number of mail robberies. Eventually, the frequency of these thefts caused the war department to place armed marines on all mail trains.^[1]

A number of high-value mail robberies occurred in the UK after the Second World War, as a result of a lack of improvements in security in the transport of money.^[2] One major example was the Eastcastle Street robbery in 1952, involving the theft of £287,000 from a post office van in London. Overall that year, 629 mailbags went missing, and in the following year the figure was 738.^[2]

The two most significant mail robberies both occurred in the early 1960s. In the UK, £2.6 million was taken in the 'Great Train Robbery' of 1963, in which £2.6 million was taken. A year earlier, $1.5 million was stolen from the hold-up of a U.S. Mail truck in Massachusetts. By the end of the 1960s, however, mail robbery had become less common.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Rail Detectives Victors in War on Crime". Popular Mechanics 41 (3): 336–339. March 1924. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Thomas, Donald (2006). Villains' Paradise: A History of Britain's Underworld. Pegasus Books. pp. 312–313.