Leader of 'ambitious' hole in wall scam gets five years

The mastermind behind a plot to steal u800m from cash dispensers by accessing bank computers has been jailed for five years.

Underworld hardman John 'Little Legs' Lloyd teamed up with Kenneth Noye, wanted in connection with the M25 road-rage murder and jailed for his part in the 1983 Brink's Mat robbery. The pair planned to empty tens of thousands of accounts from hole in the wall cash dispensers.

Five members of Lloyd's gang were also jailed for their part in the scheme.

Passing sentence at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said the plan was 'as ambitious a criminal agreement to steal as one could imagine'.

The gang's blunder was to recruit former electronics engineer and computer expert Martin Grant while he was serving 16 years at Blantyre House open prison in Kent, for trying to burn his wife and child to death.

Grant confessed his involvement to his prison chaplain, as he thought it would imperil his parole. He was studying for a degree in electronic communications and digital and logic design in prison.

The swindlers planned to enlist the help of corrupt BT technicians to break into exchanges and tap into the telephone lines which link cash dispensers to bank computers.

Exchanges in Essex, where Visa and Access have centres, were the main target. The taps would have given the gang access to tens of thousands of bank accounts. The data would have been decrypted and transferred to 140,000 bogus cash cards.

The judge told the gang: 'Very substantial resources in terms of time and money were invested into this crime. Indeed, one has a clear impression that money was readily available for whatever type of equipment you needed to buy.'