A gang has been sentenced to 87.5 years in total in prison on April 4 after robbing 30 commercial premises –mainly travel agencies –across London.
Nine members of the groupfrom Streatham, Croydon,Tulse Hill, Brixton and Tooting, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court to conspiring to rob.
Nana Obeng Ansong, 30, was named as the ringleader and given an 11–year sentence, while the others were jailed for between five and seven and a half years.
The Flying Squad at Barnes led a surveillance operation to find the criminals and eventually tracked down Ansong and three others at a robbery in Queensway, north west London.
The robbers targeted foreign currency exchanges at travel agencies which – according to police – they considered as easy targets. The offenders forced staff to open any safe or till at the rear of the premises where the employees were detained during the raid.
Detective constable Dan Williams said: “This was a gang of determined and violent robbers, who systematically targeted travel industry premises, terrorising the staff as they went. By working in partnership with ABTA and other police constabularies, we were able to disrupt this large criminal network.”