The Eastcastle Street robbery was, at the time, Britain's largest postwar robbery. It occurred on Wednesday 21 May 1952 when seven masked men held up a post office van just off Oxford Street

Oxford Street

Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The robbers escaped with £287,000 (2010: £).

The robbers used two cars to sandwich the van. The first car emerged slowly from a side street causing the van to slow down, the second car then pulled up alongside. The driver and two attendants were dragged out and coshed and the van was stolen. It was later found abandoned near Regents Park; 18 of the 31 mailbags were missing. It was found that the van's alarm bell had been tampered with.

The robbery heralded the start of the `project' (ie carefully planned and executed) crime. The mastermind behind the raid was London gangster, Billy Hill

Billy Hill (gangster)

Billy Hill was a famous British gangster and criminal mastermind from the 1920s through to the 1960s.-Biography:...

 and the robbers included George "Taters" Chatham and Terry "Lucky Tel" Hogan.

Prime minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

, Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, demanded daily updates on the police investigation and the Postmaster General, Earl de la Warr

Herbrand Sackville, 9th Earl De La Warr

Herbrand Edward Dundonald Brassey Sackville, 9th Earl De La Warr, GBE, PC, DL, JP , styled Lord Buckhurst until 1915 , was a British politician. He was the first hereditary peer to join the Labour Party and became a government minister at the age of 23...

, was required to report to the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

on what had gone wrong. Yet, despite the involvement of over 1,000 police officers, no one was ever caught.