Security guards feeling the heat

Date: 21/03/1996

By Jean-Paul Marthoz

“BUITEN dienst”, “hors service”. Earlier this month, all over the country, numerous money-hungry shoppers stood in front of empty automatic cash machines that had run out of banknotes as a result of a strike by the drivers and guards of armoured vans.

While department stores and supermarkets appealed to customers to settle their accounts with credit cards, many bank clients showed their displeasure at the inconvenience caused by the strike.

But when they watched the television news at night, most probably understood the security guards' anger and their reasons for taking industrial action - especially if they had seen the recently released blockbuster movie Heat, with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

For Belgium holds the sad record of having the highest number of armed attacks on armoured vans - and the figures are rising.

In 1993, 36 such attacks were registered. Last year, close to 50 vans were the target of well-organised and cold-blooded gangs who had no qualms about shooting indiscriminately, nor about using the most destructive weapons.

Recently, a young girl in a passing car was hit by a stray bullet during an attack on the ring road at Dilbeek. Last

September at Havré (Hainaut), a Brink's-Ziegler van was attacked with riot-guns and rocket launchers.

Two months later, in Othée, near Liège, half-a-dozen gangsters held up a GMIC van with machine-guns, explosives, a rocket launcher and explosives.

Alarm bells are ringing around the country, amid mounting concern about the consequences of these attacks.

“If this trend continues,” declared Mr Pissens, president of the Belgian association of security companies, “Belgium will be blacklisted.”

The costs in terms of insurance premiums are indeed becoming increasingly important.

In the Hainaut province, where the attacks have been particularly vicious, the public prosecutors' office has even set up a special unit of investigators, known as the Groupe Action Fourgons, GAF - an acronym which unintentionally also means “blunder”.

The police are convinced that most of the attacks are carried out by a tiny group of highly-specialised professionals.

The infamous “Haemers gang”, which was in the news in the Eighties and was involved in the abduction of former Prime Minister Paul Van Den Boeynants, was responsible for 12 attacks alone in just four years.

The vans which have been at the centre of the attacks are indeed tempting targets. They are “safes on wheels” moving millions of banknotes and hundreds of thousands of cheques every day and every night. The 180 vans notch up a staggering 1 million kilometres a month.

The security guards manning these vans are understandably both angry and scared.

Last year, one of them was killed, four seriously injured and 14 slightly hurt.

Fear and suspicion are rife - many believe that the profession has been infiltrated by gangsters' accomplices and that the current wave of attacks cannot be explained without assuming that tip-offs are coming from inside the companies.

The current crisis has been triggered by a succession of particularly violent heists, but it had been brewing from the moment Interior Minister Johan Vande Lanotte announced his plan to limit the number of guards inside the vans to just one unarmed person.

The minister's action was well-intentioned: he wanted to reduce the potential for casualties and decrease the “attractiveness” of armoured cars by introducing technologically “intelligent” systems that would destroy the cash in the event of an attack.

However, most security guards are opposed to these measures. They want to be armed, arguing that most attacks happen on the pavement when the guard leaves the van to fetch the cash. They also say a third man should be on the look out for potential threats during these operations.

But the trend seems to be moving towards unarmoured vehicles. The post office has recently announced that it will equip its 75 security vehicles with electronic protection systems that will render the banknotes unusable.

“Is Belgium such a dangerous place?” a visitor asked me while listening to the security guards' complaints.

The frequency and violence of these armed attacks against armoured vans might indeed give the wrong impression.

Belgium in general, and Brussels in particular, remain relatively safe compared to other European countries or cities, and exceptionally quiet when compared against world-wide crime figures.

Stories of break-ins and thefts are rather common among expatriates, but, apart from clearly defined 'vice zones' around the North Station and the city centre, the streets of Brussels remain relatively secure.

In 1994, the capital was only third on the crime list (accounting for 5.21&percent; of crimes), behind Antwerp (7.65&percent;) and Liège (5.33&percent;).

Incidents of vandalism were especially low in Brussels, accounting from only some 3&percent; of total crime, compared with 14&percent; in Antwerp. Likewise, in 1994, there was a total of 'only' 64 murders in the five largest Belgian cities (Brussels, Antwerp, Liège, Ghent and Charleroi).