Are Armed Robberies The Sole Preserve of London?

Armed robberies.  That bastion of crime that was rampant from the sixties onwards, and was carried out by a select section of the Underworld.  The planning and execution and the fear and adrenalin as they hit banks and security vans, ensured that many of the big villains, by that I mean the Krays and the Richardsons, avoided doing that type of crime.  As one former armed robber commented "They never had the arsehole to rob for themselves."  Their speciality was leaning on those doing the robbing and taking off them.  There we see the time honoured code of "Honour amongst thieves" in action.

    The "hero" of Bradford once claimed to me that armed robberies were "rare" in the north.  Then I wonder what was going on in Liverpool with the likes of Siega, Hughes, Showers, et al were up to?  It seems that they carried out numerous examples of a "rare" event.  What about in Manchester and the Crazy Face Gang with Cook and Pilot and other teams?  The area of "excellence" for armed robbery in Manchester is said to be Salford.  Obviously, they would have had to have brought some Londoners up to "Show them how it is done."

    The biggest load of crap, in my view, came from convicted murderer Norman Parker.  He claimed that all armed robberies outside of London, HAD to have a Londoner on it.  He failed to explain why people outside the Capital were completely incapable of this crime.  What was it about London that made it unique?  Let us look at other types of crimes.  The first use of thermal lances to burn the way into a bank vault was carried out by Liverpool villains.  The first centre of big involvement in drugs was Liverpool, long before major London villains.  So London cannot be the centre and starting point of all crime.