Great Bookie Robbery

The Great Bookie Robbery was a crime committed in Melbourne, Australia on 21 April, 1976.

A well-organized gang of six stole between $6 million and $12 million from the Victoria Club, which was located on the second floor of a building in Queen Street. The men, Raymond Bennett, Ian Carroll, Laurence Prendergast, Brian and Leslie Kane and Norman Lee, rented an office in the same building and hid the money there while making a fake getaway in a van. The money was never recovered and although Lee was charged he was later acquitted. None of the others were ever convicted. Lee was killed by police in 1992 during a heist at Melbourne Airport.

Lee's lawyer Phillip Dunn, QC, revealed the details of the crime in the mid-1990s, including the identities of all those involved. Prendergast disappeared in 1985 and the rest of the gang had all been murdered by the end of 1983. As no-one was ever jailed or convicted, the Great Bookie Robbery remains technically an unsolved crime.

TV miniseries

In 1986 a miniseries of three 90 minute episodes was released depicting the robbery. Lee participated in the production as a consultant, and even used his own residence in Verity Street, Richmond as the shooting location for the house of one of the gang. Lee was still living there at the time of his death.

External links

* [http://www.crimenet.org/show_unsolved.phtml?id=28&sid=f53e19f59fbe6cf4eea5e913ac060700 Summary of crime including details revealed by Phillip Dunn, QC]