Veronica Biggs did not provide details of the cause of death. He had been released from prison four years ago on compassionate grounds because of ill health and had suffered several strokes.
Biggs was famous or notorious for taking part in the 1963 robbery and then escaping from Wandsworth Prison. He eventually made his way to Brazil, where he lived for many years beyond the reach of British justice.
Biggs was part of a gang of at least 12 men that robbed the Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train in the early hours of 8 August 1963, switching the signals and tricking the driver into stopping in the darkness. The robbery netted 125 sacks of banknotes worth £2.6 million ($7.3 million at the time, or more than $50 million today) and became known as ‘the heist of the century’.
Most of the gang was caught and sentenced to long terms in jail. Biggs got 30 years, but 15 months into his sentence escaped from London’s Wandsworth Prison by scaling a wall with a rope ladder and jumping into a waiting furniture van. It was the start of a life on the run that would make him a folk hero.
Biggs fled to France, then to Australia and Panama before arriving in Rio de Janeiro in 1970. By that time, life on the run and plastic surgery to change his appearance had eaten up most of his loot from the train robbery.
‘It’s been a screwed-up life in many respects, but a different life,’ he told The Associated Press in 1997. ‘I’ve never been much of a 9-to-5er.’
Biggs foiled repeated attempts to force him out by deportation, extradition and even kidnapping. British detectives tracked him down in 1974, but the lack of an extradition treaty with Brazil saved him.
When Brazil’s military government tried to deport him, Biggs produced a son by a Brazilian woman, and the law again prevented his expulsion.
In 1981, two men posing as journalists grabbed Biggs at a Rio restaurant, gagged him, stuffed him into a duffel bag and flew him to the Amazon River port of Belem.
From there they sailed to Barbados, expecting to turn Biggs in and sell their story to the tabloids.
But Barbados also had no extradition treaty with England and sent him back to Rio.
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. ‘Only a fool would want to return.’ But within a few years, debilitated by strokes and other ailments, he began to yearn to see England again.
Biggs was famous or notorious for taking part in the 1963 robbery and then escaping from Wandsworth Prison. He eventually made his way to Brazil, where he lived for many years beyond the reach of British justice.
Biggs was part of a gang of at least 12 men that robbed the Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train in the early hours of 8 August 1963, switching the signals and tricking the driver into stopping in the darkness. The robbery netted 125 sacks of banknotes worth £2.6 million ($7.3 million at the time, or more than $50 million today) and became known as ‘the heist of the century’.
Most of the gang was caught and sentenced to long terms in jail. Biggs got 30 years, but 15 months into his sentence escaped from London’s Wandsworth Prison by scaling a wall with a rope ladder and jumping into a waiting furniture van. It was the start of a life on the run that would make him a folk hero.
Biggs fled to France, then to Australia and Panama before arriving in Rio de Janeiro in 1970. By that time, life on the run and plastic surgery to change his appearance had eaten up most of his loot from the train robbery.
‘It’s been a screwed-up life in many respects, but a different life,’ he told The Associated Press in 1997. ‘I’ve never been much of a 9-to-5er.’
Biggs foiled repeated attempts to force him out by deportation, extradition and even kidnapping. British detectives tracked him down in 1974, but the lack of an extradition treaty with Brazil saved him.
When Brazil’s military government tried to deport him, Biggs produced a son by a Brazilian woman, and the law again prevented his expulsion.
In 1981, two men posing as journalists grabbed Biggs at a Rio restaurant, gagged him, stuffed him into a duffel bag and flew him to the Amazon River port of Belem.
From there they sailed to Barbados, expecting to turn Biggs in and sell their story to the tabloids.
But Barbados also had no extradition treaty with England and sent him back to Rio.
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. ‘Only a fool would want to return.’ But within a few years, debilitated by strokes and other ailments, he began to yearn to see England again.