The Northern Bank Job : The Heist and How They Got Away with It

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The true story of one of the biggest bank heists in Irish and British history, and the questions that remain. On a Sunday evening in December 2004, two young men were at home with their families. Both worked for the Northern Bank's cash centre in Belfast. They heard knocks on their front doors. Within minutes masked men invaded their homes, overpowered their loved ones and disabled their electronic devices. The two bank officials were given a choice. Do what they were told or their families would die.

The following day, £26.5 million was stolen from the Northern Bank, the biggest cash heist in Irish and British history. Only one organisation had the ability to execute such an audacious, minutely-planned robbery, the Irish Republican Army. But the IRA was supposedly demobilised as a result of the Good Friday Agreement signed six years earlier.

Yet no one has ever been convicted of any crime relating to the heist. Glenn Patterson builds on his popular BBC podcast to shed new light on the infamous heist, the victims, the organisers and the abortive, at times comically inept, attempts to find the people who carried it out.

Author: Glenn Patterson

True crime

Published on 11 Jun 2026 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.