Australia’s biggest bank robberies span almost 200 years. The earliest recorded case was the 1828 Bank of Australia robbery in Sydney, where thieves tunnelled into the vault and took an estimated £14,000. The largest unsolved cash theft is the 1978 Murwillumbah raid, worth $1.7 million at the time (about $8.8 million today). Other major cases include the 1976 Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne, the violent 1984 Sydney bank siege, and the 1990s crime spree of the Postcard Bandit, Brendan Abbott, who is estimated to have robbed around 40 banks.
Bank robberies were most common in Australia through the 1970s and 1980s. Recorded armed robbery has fallen sharply since then, though property crime more broadly has shifted rather than disappeared, which is why solid home and business security still matters.
| Year | Robbery | Location | Amount stolen | Status |
| 1828 | Bank of Australia robbery | Sydney, NSW | Around £14,000 | Solved |
| 1971 | The $500,000 Qantas hoax | Sydney, NSW | $500,000 | Solved |
| 1976 | The Great Bookie Robbery | Melbourne, VIC | $1.4 million officially, bookmakers claim up to $3 million | Unsolved |
| 1978 | Murwillumbah Bank Mystery Raid | Murwillumbah, NSW | $1.7 million ($8.8 million today) | Unsolved |
| 1984 | Sydney bank siege | Sydney, NSW | Around $57,000 across three banks | Offender killed by police |
| 1990s | Postcard Bandit crime spree | QLD, NSW, WA | Estimated across 40+ banks | Solved, offender later recaptured |
| 2020 | Melbourne gold heist | Melbourne, VIC | $3.9 million in gold, jewellery and cash | Solved |
Australia’s First Recorded Bank Robbery: 1828, Sydney
Long before hold ups and getaway cars, Australia’s earliest known bank robbery was a straightforward piece of tunnelling. In 1828, thieves dug beneath the Bank of Australia in Sydney and broke into the vault from below, escaping with around £14,000, a huge sum for the colony at the time.
The case is notable because it happened only a few years after Australia’s first banks opened, showing that bank security has been a live problem since the very start of the country’s banking history.
Australia’s Dog Day Afternoon: The 1984 Sydney Bank Siege
Dog Day Afternoon is a bank heist film starring Al Pacino, based on a real Brooklyn robbery from 1972 that ended in a hostage standoff. Sydney had its own version in 1984, and it played out just as dramatically.
Hakki “Tim” Bahadir Atahan was a Turkish born immigrant who had arrived in Australia in 1970. Between March 1983 and January 1984 he carried out an estimated 20 bank heists, netting close to $200,000.
His run ended on 31 January 1984, when he tried to rob three banks in a single day. He took around $17,000 from two branches in Macquarie Place before moving on to a Commonwealth Bank branch on George Street. This time a staff member triggered the alarm before he could get away, and police surrounded the building while he was still stuffing $40,000 into his briefcase.
Atahan took five hostages, holding a gun to the bank manager’s head to stop police from getting a clear shot, and forced the manager to drive him from the scene. The chase ended near his home, where police had already set up a blockade with a helicopter overhead. Atahan tried to smash through, shot at officers and wounded one in the face, before being shot and killed as police returned fire, bringing his final day’s total of around $57,000 across three banks to a violent end.
Biggest Gold Heist in Victoria: 2020, Melbourne
In one of Victoria’s biggest armed robberies, a 48 year old man from Hawthorn East held up a CBD gold dealer while wearing a surgical mask. Karl Kachami threatened and assaulted a staff member at the Melbourne Gold Company with a Glock pistol, then wheeled the entire contents of the safe out on a trolley.
Armed Crime Squad detectives say Kachami took $3.9 million worth of gold bullion, jewellery and cash on 1 May 2020. The haul was later recovered at a rural property near Dollar, in Gippsland, and Kachami was arrested and charged, closing out one of Melbourne’s biggest recent armed robberies. Investigators believe he used the disruption caused by COVID 19 security changes to get into a building shared by several gold and precious gem dealers.
The Great Bookie Robbery: 1976, Melbourne
On 21 April 1976, six armed men burst into the Victorian Club in Melbourne carrying submachine guns. They walked out with almost $1.4 million in what remains one of the biggest armed robberies in Australian history.
The timing was deliberate. Bookmakers were settling bets from the Easter race meetings, and security guards from Mayne Nickless were in the club delivering cash at exactly that moment. One guard who reached for his own weapon was struck in the head and threatened with death. Another gunman held a gun to a waitress’s head to keep the room from moving.
The robbers cut open the security boxes with bolt cutters, dumped the cash into three mailbags and left through a side door. The official figure was $1,375,000, though bookmakers at the time claimed the real total was closer to $3 million. No one was ever charged, and almost fifty years on the Great Bookie Robbery remains one of Australia’s most well known unsolved crimes.
The $500,000 Qantas Hoax: 1971, Sydney
The Great Plane Robbery of 1971 sounds like fiction, and it was loosely inspired by one, the 1966 thriller Doomsday Flight. On 26 May 1971, a caller identifying himself as “Mr Brown” told Sydney police there was a bomb aboard Qantas flight 755, bound for Hong Kong, set to explode once the plane dropped below 6,500 metres.
To prove he wasn’t bluffing, Mr Brown said an identical device was hidden at the airport. Qantas turned the flight back to Sydney, and the plane circled for hours, running low on fuel, while police waited for instructions. Mr Brown eventually directed them to deliver $500,000 to Qantas House. He collected the cash from a Kombi van window and disappeared, before calling one last time that evening to admit the bomb never existed.
Mr Brown was later identified as English traveller Peter Macari, who was tracked down, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison for one of the boldest extortion attempts in Australian aviation history.
Murwillumbah Bank Mystery Raid: 1978, Still Unsolved
On the morning of 23 November 1978, a security guard found the front door of the Bank of NSW in Murwillumbah open. Bank staff discovered $1.7 million in cash, meant for local workers’ fortnightly pay, had vanished overnight.
No one was ever charged, but suspicion has long pointed to the Magnetic Drill Gang, believed to be led by safe breaker Graham “The Munster” Kinniburgh, one of the most influential figures in Victoria’s underworld at the time. The gang is thought to have carried out at least 14 other bank raids across Melbourne and Sydney using a signature electromagnetic diamond tipped drill.
The unofficial account is that the gang entered through the back door, drilled a small hole in the safe and fed a medical cystoscope through it to work the lock’s tumblers. Locksmiths from the Chubb Vault Company were flown in from Brisbane the next day but couldn’t get the damaged safe open after five hours. Engineers eventually had to break through the vault wall to confirm what had been taken.
Adjusted for inflation, the stolen amount is worth around $8.8 million today, which is why this raid is often called the biggest heist in Australian history. Kinniburgh was shot and killed by Lewis Moran in 2003, and was never charged over the Murwillumbah robbery, which remains unsolved to this day.
The Postcard Bandit: Brendan Abbott’s 1990s Crime Spree
Brendan Abbott, better known as the Postcard Bandit, is one of the most notorious bank robbers in Australian history. Through the 1990s he is estimated to have robbed around 40 banks across Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, earning his nickname after reportedly sending a taunting postcard to police.
Abbott’s approach relied on meticulous planning rather than brute force, and he was known for slipping away from custody as easily as he slipped into banks. He escaped from prison more than once before his eventual recapture, and his story remains one of the most referenced in Australian true crime coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Australian bank robberies remain unsolved?
Two of the biggest cases on this list were never solved. The 1976 Great Bookie Robbery and the 1978 Murwillumbah Bank Mystery Raid both remain open files, despite decades of investigation and, in Murwillumbah’s case, a strong suspect who died without ever being charged. Combined, they account for millions of dollars that were never recovered.
How common are bank robberies in Australia today?
Bank robberies were far more frequent in the 1970s and 1980s, when several occurred every year in cities like Melbourne and Sydney. Improved physical security, time delay safes, electronic transactions and reduced cash handling have made armed bank robbery rare today. Robbery and burglary targeting homes and businesses remains a far more common risk than robbing a bank ever was.
What happens to bank robbers who are caught in Australia?
Armed robbery is treated as one of the most serious property crimes on the books. Exact penalties vary between states, but courts treat aggravating factors such as using a weapon, taking hostages or causing injury as reasons to hand down much longer sentences. The cases above show the range of outcomes in practice, from Atahan being shot during the crime itself to Kachami being arrested, charged and prosecuted through the courts.
How has security against robbery changed since the 1970s and 80s?
Modern banks rely on layered security that didn’t exist during most of the robberies on this list, including time delay safes that can’t be opened on demand, dye packs, CCTV linked directly to police, and cash limits that mean tellers no longer hold large sums. The same shift from reacting to preventing applies to homes and businesses. Quality deadlocks, access control and monitored alarms do far more to stop a break-in than luck ever will.
Protect What Matters With a Locksmith in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie
Most burglaries aren’t as dramatic as the cases above, but they don’t need to be high profile to be devastating for the people affected. If you want your home or business properly secured, Ambassador Locksmiths installs high quality locking systems across Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
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