LONDON // Two members of an armed gang who stole £2 million (Dh11.6m) in cash belonging to the Dubai Royal Family have been sent to prison.
The money was stolen at gunpoint last June as it was being loaded into the boot of a car outside the National Bank of Dubai in Knightsbridge, west London.
The cash was intended as spending money for members of the Al Maktoum family holidaying in London.
Abdullah Shakeri, an aide working for the family, was told he would be shot in the face by two men holding handguns who approached him as he and bank staff loaded two suitcases of money into the car.
One of the robbers, Trevor Mair, 46, from south London, was arrested as he fled by armed members of the Metropolitan Police's diplomatic protection group, who happened to be nearby. Jonathon Haynes, 37, from Surrey, the driver of the getaway car, was also intercepted by police minutes later and the money, in £50 notes, was recovered along with a 9mm handgun that had been thrown into a nearby garden.
A third member of the gang is still at large.
The two captured men were convicted after a trial at Isleworth Crown Court in December.
Haynes has been jailed for eight and a half years for robbery and Mair for nine years.
[ newsdesk@thenational.ae ]
