The British cash-and-valuables-in-transit sector was born in the late 1950s, during a crime wave in a country still suffering from the aftermath of six years of war. It was felt that the old ways of transporting cash and valuables were no longer adequate to protect against the ‘modern’ criminal, and therefore trained security officers, specialist vehicles and good security drills were needed to foil attacks by robbery gangs and lower insurance premiums.
While not the first British CVIT firm, Securicor Ltd. soon became the biggest and most successful, opening branches across the country with a large fleet of specialist vehicles. The initial bedrock of this national fleet was the Austin J2 CVIT van. Securicor’s Armoured Division had a fleet of approximately 650 of such vans by the 1960s, used to transport cash and valuables from secure depots to customers’ premises, and vice versa.
This innovative vehicle is worthy of study as it featured numerous security measures that demonstrate the amount of thought and engineering that went into how to protect a vehicle from armed robbers. From the outside, it appeared fairly ordinary. However, it had a range of security measures, including:
- an armoured vault area in the rear of the van;
- steel wiring protecting the windows;
- sliding steel protection for both front seat windows and doors;
- small protected windows in the side and rear of the vault to improve crew situational awareness;
- metal rail reinforcement on both sides of the van for protection against ramming;
- additional locks and bolts;
- an internal cash transfer hatch between the front seats and the vault;
- an emergency attack alarm;
- and a two-way radio communications system.
Despite the relatively small size of the vans, each vehicle was designed to be crewed by three security officers – one in the vault, two up front – who transported each cash consignment in a locked and hardened briefcase, handcuffed to his wrist.
In 1965, Gerald Day, an electronics engineer from Birmingham, developed a more sophisticated variation of the Austin J2 CVIT vehicle, incorporating various physical and electronic security measures, as a test model for Armatac (Security) Ltd.[1] This vehicle would have been worthy of a James Bond film, and included:
- bullet-resistant armouring using a steel-asbestos-aluminium composite;
- an electronic cash transfer system with two hatches on the right-hand side of the vehicle where cash boxes could be placed and then automatically transferred to the vehicle’s vault;
- an anti-hijacking system that would cause the vehicle to automatically break if stolen;
- an anti-towing device, using horizontally-extending steel bars;
- an automatic extinguishing system to protect against oxy-acetylene torches;
- electronic door locking system;
- an automatic high-pressure air conditioning to protect against gas attack;
- an automatic drop-shutter system protecting the rear bullion compartment;
- an audible alarm with a pre-recorded verbal warning;
- and an automated clamping system for the cash boxes within the van’s vault in case of attack.[2]
Equally impressive was the use of indelible dye foam, using pressurised cylinders, in the cash boxes to automatically mark the cash within, in case of attack upon the security courier.[3] This is a very similar system to the Intelligent Banknote Neutralisation Systems (IBNS) still used today in many developed countries, which have proved to be highly effective at deterring CVIT robberies.
British CVIT vehicles have continued to evolve over time, with many new innovative security measures incorporated tested and incorporated into the vehicles in response to evolving threats. In future articles, we will explore some of these other interesting technologies.
[1] https://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/23th-april-1965/83/a-security-van-that-fights-back
[2] https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/87448/
[3] https://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/23th-april-1965/83/a-security-van-that-fights-back
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