A man accused of masterminding one of Australia’s most infamous armed robberies could be free as early as Wednesday after a jury failed to deliver a verdict.
Pasquale – aka ‘Percy No Mercy’ – Lanciana was on Tuesday told his County Court of Victoria jury could not decide whether he was guilty or not of participating in the notorious ‘Road Gang Heist’ in Richmond which saw $2.21 million stolen from an Armaguard van on June 22, 1994.
Lanciana was accused of being in a team of five who pulled-off the brazen heist, which has gone on to feature in television shows such as the 2014 crime series Fat Tony.
Percy ‘No Mercy’ Lanciana was a feared kick boxer who was accused of knocking over an armoured van full of cash in 1994. He allegedly broke the golden rule of crime and made admissions that were caught on tape, the jury heard.
An Armaguard van in Sydney is attacked by gunmen in 2013. The robbery crew dressed as a road gang to steal a van as it entered a busy highway just out of the heart of Melbourne
A scene of the notorious robbery as depicted in the television program Fat Tony. History would prove ‘Fat Tony’ Mokbel had nothing to do with the actual robbery
Lanciana will apply for bail on Wednesday morning after learning his re-trial will not take place until April next year.
He has already spent years behind bars awaiting trial.
The jury had been deliberating since last week, but told Judge Michael O’Connell it would be unable to come up with a unanimous decision.
It had been a epic trial, with the jury hearing that Lanciana had failed to keep his mouth shut about the alleged crime.
Detective Ross McKenzie, who was the investigator back in the 90s, described the raid as a ‘meticulously carried out armed robbery that required very sophisticated planning’.
The cash van had left the Reserve Bank on Collins Street and driven onto Punt Road in Richmond when it approached what appeared to be road works as it entered the Monash Freeway.
There were witches hats and road workers ahead, including a man in overalls, a hard hat and goggles.
It stunk of an inside job.
Before Michael West knew it, the crooks were in the back of the heavily armoured van and a gun was pointed at his head.
They appeared to have got in with a key.
‘I’m going to take your watch off, don’t worry, I’m not a thief,’ one of the bandits said.
Mr West was handcuffed and a bag was placed over his head.
‘I don’t want you to worry, they have got holes in them, you won’t suffocate,’ he was told.
When his partner started to freak out, the bandits reassured them.
‘Don’t worry, you’ve been very good. Just do what we tell you and you won’t be harmed,’ one said.
They even had time for a joke about the tightness of the cuffs.
‘Don’t worry, we’ve had these on before, you’ll get used to them,’ the cocky bandit quipped.
The men drove the van through the back streets of Richmond to Walnut Street, where it was emptied of the cash and abandoned with the three officers still inside.
The robbery was over in just minutes. The bandits had left their guns and vanished.
The case was re-opened in 2012 when detectives began looking at it again.
While they had several people of interest, the comic-book loving Lanciana had emerged as a hot candidate.
Fighting fit: Percy ‘No Mercy’ Lanciana (right) was a feared kickboxer in his day
Police released images of four men they believed looked like the armed robbers who committed the Richmond heist. Prosecutors would later tell the jury that police never really thought the bandits looked much like any of them
Armaguard drivers said the road gang bandits were cool and polite and even had time to make jokes during the daring robbery that netted them $2.2 million
Months earlier, Percy had met with a woman, who unbeknownst to him, was wearing a police wire.
Not long after the heist, she had been identified visiting banks and exchanging $20 notes for higher amounts.
CCTV allegedly showed Percy sitting outside one bank as the marked notes were ‘washed’ by the woman, who cannot be named.
When media reports appeared that year showing her image, the woman claimed she fronted Percy to ask him about what she had become involved in.
She was grilled for days at Lanciana’s trial last month.
The County Court of Victoria trial against Pasquale Lanciano went for more than a month and has dragged through the justice system for years.
The woman had told police Lanciana had confessed to the robbery after she was caught on CCTV at the bank.
‘They’ll never get you, the photo isn’t clear,’ Percy allegedly assured her.
She claimed Percy had told her the cash was from the Richmond heist, which he had carried out with four other blokes, whom he named.
The jury heard she later wore a wire without any promises she would be indemnified from prosecution over her role in the alleged laundering – it was granted in 2017.
At Chadstone Shopping Centre, Lanciana fell into a police trap.
‘And they’ve got DNA’, the woman told Percy. ‘They’re doing DNA.’
‘On what?’ Percy asked.
‘On what was in the armed robbery,’ she told him.
Police convinced a woman to wear a wire in the hope Lanciana would blab about the heist. Percy was hooked line and sinker
She asked Percy if they wore gloves:
‘Everyone wore them,’ he said.
‘Imagine if they’ve got the DNA from the gloves,’ she told him.
‘DNA from the gloves? We didn’t’ – we didn’t – I don’t think – the gloves weren’t left there,’ Percy said.
By the time of the conversation in July 2014, Percy should of had reason to be suspicious of her.
But he allegedly went even further.
‘Their problem is this. I didn’t do the robbery,’ he said.
He said something inaudible and then made an alleged admission.
‘I just organised it. I didn’t do it,’ he said.
Crown prosecutor Jim Shaw told the jury that was all they needed to know.
‘Whether he was present on the day at the fake roadworks and doing something there or physically participating, or if he wasn’t there and just organised it, either way, he’s guilty of armed robbery,’ he said.
Lanciana pleaded not guilty to armed robbery, false imprisonment and money laundering.
He claimed $250,000 he quickly cooked-up for a suspicious property deal had come from family and friends, and from selling his precious comic books.
Mr Gumbleton had urged the jury to accept there was reasonable doubt that a ‘rogue’s gallery’ of other suspects had committed the crime.
He told them to ignore Lanciana’s so-called admissions to the woman, which he claimed never happened.
‘We say that there is plenty of motivation for her to have told the police what they wanted to hear. And much of what the police wanted to hear was laid out for her, chapter and verse,’ he said.
Mr Gumbleton told the jury they would never be able to exclude that Lanciana was nothing more than a money launderer.
‘If he said he organised it, how did he organise it? What did he do … Can you exclude the rogues gallery and can you act on the admission that he said that he organised it?’ he said.
Lanciana’s defence claimed his recorded confession to the woman amounted to little.
‘We don’t know what he organised, but is there any evidence to suggest that he organised anything other than going to the bank with (the woman) and some money and did a property transaction?’ Mr Gumbleton said.
He further argued if the jury deduced Lanciana had not been involved in the armed robbery, they could not find him guilty of anything else.
‘If he didn’t participate as an armed robber, if he didn’t receive a share of the proceeds of that armed robbery, then it cannot follow that he is a money launderer in this case,’ he said.
Lanciana’s barristers Mark Gumbleton and Adam Chernok were clearly annoyed at the verdict, claiming they remained ‘unfunded’ by Victorian Legal Aid for weeks of ‘pre-trial’ work.
The pair said while they would carry out Lanciana’s application for bail tomorrow, they would not take charge of the re-trial.
The barristers said they were unlikely to carry out Victorian Legal Aid funded work again after having to navigate up to 60 files of information for little to no return.
Lanciana will return to court tomorrow.