Armored truck guard disappears with over $1Million
London UK April 26 2019
A security guard vanished with £1million from his abandoned van.
Joel March, 36, left his armoured G4S vehicle on a double-yellow line at 9am — but the firm were only alerted more than eight hours later.
The G4S vehicle is seen pulling up in the morning at 8.57am.
The G4S security van was abandoned for more than eight hours, with cops arriving at 7pm
The dad of three is alleged to have disappeared with 40 cash boxes on Tuesday in Clapham, South West London.
He was since arrested in nearby Brixton and G4S have launched a probe.
Experts blasted the “catastrophic” security blunder. One source said: “Security was a joke — Deliveroo would have done a better job.”
One resident said he immediately thought it was suspicious “because there are no shops here”.
He later peered in and said: “I saw some strips of paper with ‘mum,’ ‘dad’ and phone numbers. That worried me in case someone had come to harm.”
He said he called G4S at around 5.30pm but “they didn’t seem particularly concerned”.
It was not until 7pm that the Met Police was alerted “to reports of a theft of cash deposit boxes”.
The resident added: “Some of the guard’s family turned up at around 8pm very upset. They said he’d been under a lot of pressure.”
The Met said a 36-year-old man was arrested in the afternoon in nearby Brixton.
Before the arrest, March’s mum Rowena Watson, who lives with her son and his kids, told The Sun he had left his personal phone at home on Tuesday.
She said: “He was a bit stressed before this but I can’t think why he would do it. As far as I know he never had any money issues.”
He was a bit stressed before this but I can’t think why he would do it.
G4S is the biggest security company in the UK for handling, transporting and processing cash.
But ex-Met chief superintendent Barry Phillips said: “Something has gone seriously wrong. The van’s movements should have been monitored and the controllers should have been in regular communication with the guard.”
He also found it “bewildering” that the parking warden did not call the police after ticketing the van at around 5pm.
