Ronnie Biggs, 'Great Train Robber,' dead at 84
Ronnie Biggs, known for his role in the 1963 "Great Train Robbery," died Dec. 18, his daughter-in-law said. He was 84. (July 8, 1963) Credit: AP
LONDON -- Ronnie Biggs was a petty criminal who set out to transform his life with the daring heist of a mail train packed with money.
The plan worked in ways he could never have imagined.
Biggs was part of a gang of at least 12 men that robbed a Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train in the early hours of Aug. 8, 1963, switching its signals and tricking the driver into stopping in the darkness. The robbery netted 125 sacks of bank notes worth 2.6 million pounds -- $7.3 million at the time, or more than $50 million today -- and became known as "the heist of the century." Biggs, who has died at age 84, was soon caught and jailed, but his escape from a London prison and decades on the run turned him into a media sensation.
He lived for many years beyond the reach of British justice in Rio de Janeiro, where he would regale tourists and the media alike with stories about the robbery. He appeared to enjoy thumbing his nose at the British authorities and even sold T- shirts and other memorabilia about his role in the robbery.
He was free for 35 years before voluntarily returning to England in 2001 on a private jet sponsored by The Sun tabloid.
Biggs died Wednesday, daughter-in-law Veronica Biggs said. She did not provide details about the cause of death.
Most of the Great Train Robbery gang was caught and sentenced to long terms in jail. Biggs got 30 years, but 15 months into his sentence he escaped from London's Wandsworth Prison by scaling a wall with a rope ladder and jumping into a waiting furniture van.
In 1997 Brazil's Supreme Court rejected an extradition request on the ground that the statute of limitations had run out. At the time, Biggs said he didn't want to go back to Britain. "All I have to go back to is a prison cell, after all," he said. But within a few years, debilitated by strokes and other ailments, Biggs began to yearn to see England again.
The Sun newspaper helped arrange his return, even chartering the private jet that flew him home. Biggs spent several years in prison, emerging as a frail shadow of his dapper "gentleman thief" image.
In 2002 Biggs married Raimunda Rothen, with whom he had one son, Michael. They survive him, as do two children -- Chris and Farley -- from his first marriage, to Charmian Brent. Another son, Nicholas, died in 1971.
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