Cashpoint theft gang member has to pay back £200k
A member of a gang that stole more than £1 million from cash machines has been ordered to pay back almost £200,000.
Another member of the gang was ordered to repay just £10.
Noel Reilly, aged 39, from Barnes Hill, Weoley Castle, Birmingham, and Martin Steadman, 34, of Luce Road, Low Hill, Wolverhampton, were two of five raiders who committed a string of attacks on ATMs at stores and service stations in 2017 and 2018.
Between them the men netted more than £1,200,000.
On Friday in a proceeds of crime hearing at Shrewsbury Crown Court, Judge Anthony Lowe ordered that Reilly repay £199,162.99.
Of that money, £126,193 will be paid to Tesco, one of the companies the gang targeted.
The court was told the money was tied up in assets that had been confiscated by the prosecution.
Ms Julia Wallace, for Reilly, said her client was grateful to the judge for agreeing his personal number plate would be taken from one of the seized cars and returned to him. “It is not worth much but is of great sentimental value,” she said.
After hearing Steadman had no assets Judge Lowe ordered he pay a nominal £10.
In April last year Steadman and Reilly were both jailed for seven-and-a-half years for their parts in the raids.
They had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burgle and converting criminal property.
The court at the time heard that in preparation for their carefully planned early morning thefts, the gang broke into Albrighton and Newport fire stations in summer 2017 to snatch equipment that was supposed to be used to save lives to use in the crimes.
The first cash machine raid took place at Co-op, in Ludlow, on August 20, 2017, when more than £115,000 was stolen.
A string of break-ins followed including at Crossgates Service Station, in Llandrindod Wells, Powys.
On August 28, 2017, the gang, which travelled in a stolen Audi, struck at Tesco Express in Whitchurch, fleeing with more than £50,000.
On the same night there was a failed bid to repeat the activity at Asda, in Cheadle, Staffordshire.
In all they committed 23 burglaries between June 2017 and September 2018 in 14 counties.
The jail sentences followed an investigation led by West Mercia Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit.
The men were captured after officers put one of the men under surveillance and the unit was able to link his movements with potential burglaries and his links with the other defendants.
They committed their offences in 10 police force areas including West Mercia, Staffordshire, Avon and Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Thames Valley, Gloucestershire and Derbyshire.
In West Mercia, Albrighton and Newport Fire Stations were targeted and the gang attacked sites in Ludlow, Droitwich, Bromsgrove, Malvern, Whitchurch and Tenbury Wells.
