Daring plot to steal auld mug

By EUGENE BINGHAM and JOHN ANDREWS

The plan was as audacious as it was spectacular: snatch the America's Cup and speed off with it up the Waitemata Harbour.

Once out of Team New Zealand's grasp, the world's oldest sporting trophy was to be held for ransom - perhaps as much as $1 million.

One of New Zealand's most notorious criminals was behind the plan, but it was foiled when Auckland detectives heard about it through the underworld grapevine.

The cup was whisked off to a bank vault and the affair was hushed up, although it was the most serious security scare since the Auld Mug was bashed with a hammer soon after New Zealand won it in 1995.

Police say their special security operation in the lead-up to the 2000 cup defence was kept quiet, but people may have noticed some odd behaviour.

"It was one of those interesting little twists that was never told," said the officer in charge of planning for the last cup, Inspector Brent Holmes. It probably explains some of the strange things that people might have seen police doing last time."

Mr Holmes was willing to finally talk about the hijack plan after police sources revealed the extent of it to the Weekend Herald.

Members of the city's criminal underworld had tipped detectives off, mentioning specific names and details. The leader was said to be a well-known Auckland criminal.

The scheme was to break in through an outside wall and snatch the silver ewer from its glass case at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron at Westhaven.

The gang intended to zoom up the harbour towards Greenhithe or Herald Island, although there was an alternative plan to hide on an island in the Hauraki Gulf.

They initially talked of demanding $1 million, but the figure was later reduced to $100,000, police sources said.

"This was a most serious threat because [the criminals] had the means to do it," said one senior detective. "They were stymied by the cup being put in a vault."

Mr Holmes said the scheme unravelled because the police had received such good intelligence.

"The intelligence was not just gossip or rumour. We certainly believed there was a concerted, fully planned operation to take the cup."

A team of detectives began investigating when the plan was uncovered in late 1999, and extra attention was paid to the physical security of the cup itself.

"We decided to put it into a bank vault and take it out only when it was required," said Mr Holmes.

By the time the cup defence began in February 2000, police believed the threat had passed.

Mr Holmes said it had been a significant drain on police resources but it had been necessary because of the extent of the planning and the nature of the people believed to be behind the plot.

"I don't remember firearms being mentioned but I'd have been concerned about that just simply with the types of people involved," said Mr Holmes.

No one was ever charged in connection with the plan.

Team New Zealand's executive director, Tony Thomas, said the threat to the cup had been treated "very seriously".

"It's a pretty old sporting trophy, and we are only custodians of it so we didn't want to lose it," he said.

The team worked with the squadron on security to protect the cup. Since August 2000, it has been kept on display at the squadron headquarters by day and returned to a vault in the ceiling each night.

"Even when it's on display in the squadron, if anyone gets near it, there's an alert and the shutters come down."

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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