Mail robbery is a type of robbery involving the theft of money or high-value goods from postal transport, normally trains.

In the USA, the period immediately following the First World War witnessed a large number of mail robberies. Eventually, the frequency of these thefts caused the war department to place armed marines on all mail trains.

A number of high-value mail robberies occurred in the UK after the Second World War, as a result of a lack of improvements in security in the transport of money. One major example was the Eastcastle Street robbery

Eastcastle Street robbery

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, London. The robbers escaped with £287,000 ....

 in 1952, involving the theft of £287,000 from a post office van in London. Overall that year, 629 mailbags went missing, and in the following year the figure was 738.

The two most significant mail robberies both occurred in the early 1960s. In the UK, £2.6 million was taken in the 'Great Train Robbery

Great Train Robbery (1963)

The Great Train Robbery is the name given to a £2.6 million train robbery committed on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England. The bulk of the stolen money was not recovered...

' of 1963, in which £2.6 million was taken. A year earlier, $1.5 million was stolen from the hold-up of a U.S. Mail truck in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. By the end of the 1960s, however, mail robbery had become less common.