Unseen Adelaide

Australia’s first bank robbery

Australia’s first bank robbery occurred on 14 September 1828. A gang of five robbers entered a nearby drain and tunneled through to the vault of the Bank of Australia in George Street, Sydney. The robbers stole £14,000 (~$25M today) in notes and coins.

They made their way through the underground drain until they were near the vault and, over the course of several days, worked with tools to remove bricks and attack the five-foot (1.5 metre) thick vault enclosure. [See Sydney Gazette article Wednesday 17 September 1828]

Up until that day, no bank in the country had ever been robbed before, and the scale of the theft was enormous.

The Money Heist Tunnels

To circumvent any robbery similar to that of the Bank of Australia, Adelaide‘s vault rooms were designed to incorporate a unique structural element—a surrounding tunnel.

It was still conceivable that a group of robbers could tunnel their way underground and break through the walls of the vault and steal its contents.

If a tunnel had been dug to breach the vault’s fortified walls, robbers would first have to pass through the outer tunnel surrounding the vault.

Security guards would hear the sound of burrowing.

Any attempt to break through the walls would have been quickly discovered and any money heist thwarted.