Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Celebrity Who Robbed a Train - The Ronnie Biggs story

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

This is the story of Ronnie Biggs and the great train robbery and how he fled to Brazil and became a local celebrity

Predator Badlands, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Here, you're not the predator. You're the prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning, and breathtaking. Many have come here. None have survived. Predator Badlands, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. This is Biggs, and Biggs is about to become famous for a really weird reason.

Now, Biggs lives in England, and he's kind of a turd. He's been to prison a few times for like break-ins and stealing cars and stuff like that. But one day, he's out of prison, and he's living a clean life, and Biggs wants to buy a house for his wife and his three sons. Problem is, Biggs ain't got no money. He's broke. So he calls up an old friend of his, a guy who he met back in prison. This guy, Bruce, and he asked Bruce if he could maybe loan him some money. And Bruce is like, nah, bro.

But I'm actually in the middle of organizing a train heist. And he offers to cut him in. And Biggs is like, I. And so the plan is they're going to rob a royal mail train, which is a train that picks up and delivers mail. Now, one of the cars on that train carries high value cargo, which is just lots and lots of bags of cash. Now, Bruce has a guy on the inside feeding him information about the train schedule and cargo,

so he knows exactly when and where to stop this royal mail train carrying all this cash. And along with Bruce and Biggs, there are 13 other guys involved in this heist, so 15 total. But we're just going to focus on Bruce and Biggs. So Bruce and Biggs and 13 other guys, they put on ski masks and gloves and they are ready to go. And they don't have Pew Pughs because this is English. Instead, they just have some metal bars to beat people with. And so then the big day comes, and it's 3 a.m. And all the men go out to the train tracks and they hide.

And when they hear the train approaching, a couple of them go to one of those track signals. It's kind of like a stoplight for trains. And they turn off a green track signal, and they use batteries to turn on a red signal. And once the train approaches and it sees the red light, it starts to slow way down. And that's when, bam, all 15 men jump out. from their hiding spot and they swarm the train and they get on board and then pow one of them hits the conductor with the bar nearly knocking him out and then some of the other men board the car with all the cash in it and they force the train

workers to lie down on the ground and then eventually when the train comes to a full stop the 15 men they start loading the bags of money into two land rovers they have parked nearby now these guys steal a hundred and twenty-five bags of cash two point six million pounds which today in US dollars would be worth about $35 million. So then they drive the Land Rover over to this farmhouse in the country that some of them own so that they can hide out there and divide up the money. And over the next few days, they all take their cut of the money and they split and go their separate ways.

Now, they have hired some people to come burn down the farmhouse after they leave to hide any evidence. But the people who they hired who were supposed to burn it down, they don't follow through with the plan for whatever reason. And then police end up finding the farmhouse and they get a bunch of the guy's fingerprints and eventually, bam, Biggs gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And also Bruce and 12 of the other guys get arrested too. So Biggs gets sentenced to 30 years in prison for this.

But his story's not over. Because while he's in prison, he decides, eh, this place isn't for me. And so he makes a rope ladder and one day he uses it to climb over the prison wall and he escapes. So now he's on the run, and he flees from England all the way to Paris. And in Paris, he gets some plastic surgery, and he assumes a new identity. Then he moves his wife and family from Paris all the way to Australia. And from there, he and his family stay on the run, and they move like three different times, and Biggs changes his identity every time.

But, unfortunately, it's not enough. Because one night, Biggs sees on the local evening news that Law Enfell, believes he's living and hiding out in the area. And so then Biggs just like straight up ditches his wife and sons. And he gets on a passenger liner and he takes it from Melbourne all the way to Panama. And then from there he flies to Brazil. And there for about a year he lives under the radar, working as a carpenter. Here's the thing about Brazil though.

At this time, Brazil has no extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. So Biggs can't get in trouble for his England crimes while he's living there. Lucky bastard. And at this point, he's been on the run for about five years. But he's having a great time in Brazil. He's partying every night, drinking at the clubs, and one night he meets an adult dancer at the club. And we'll just call her second wife, because she eventually becomes his second wife. And these two get married and he gets her pregnant.

Now, around this time, Scotland Yucson, Shows up to Brazil, looking for Biggs. And they actually find him, and bam, they detain him. Here's his mugshot again. And so Scott Lignard tries to work with Brazilian police to deport Biggs back to England, but Brazilian police are like, nah, bro. A, because they don't have an extradition treaty with United Kingdom, and B, because second wife is pregnant.

And there's this whole other Brazilian law that says that you can't be extradited if you are a parent to a Brazilian child. So Biggs is free to go. However, his status as a known criminal means he's not allowed to work. So he's broke all over again. And everyone now knows he's an ex-con because his story has been all over the news.

So then what does he do? He becomes a sort of local celebrity. And he starts charging local newspapers to do stories and interviews with him. And he becomes like sort of a tourist attraction. Like, he's the convict who successfully robbed a train and escaped from prison. And so naturally, people want to meet him and have him sign autographs, and apparently he's selling mugs and t-shirts.

So he starts making money this way. He even stars in a commercial for a Brazilian coffee company. Now, I couldn't find a copy of the commercial, but here's what he actually said in it. When you are on the run all the time, like me, you really appreciate a good cup of coffee. I'm not kidding. Those are his exact words. In fact, the dude is getting so famous that any celebrity that visits Rio de Janeiro during this time always has to stop and meet Biggs. Apparently, Rod Stewart stops by to meet him and Sting stops by to meet him.

The freaking sex pistols stop by and write a song with him and they perform it and release it and it becomes kind of a hit. But then shit gets crazy again because one day he goes to a restaurant to meet a reporter for another interview. And while he's there, a couple of goons jump him, and they put him in a sack, and they put him on a boat,

and they take him to Barbados. The kidnappers are, of course, hoping to get a reward from British police for capturing Biggs. But, unfortunately for them, when their boat arrives in Barbados, Barbados is also like,

sorry, bro, we also don't have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. And so they send Biggs back to Brazil, where he once again is a free man. And so Biggs he lives his life as an escaped criminal for about two more decades before ultimately his health starts to deteriorate. So then finally he gives up and he surrenders

and he flies back to England to get the good health care he needs. And as soon as his plane lands in England, bam, he sent back to prison to finish his sentence. But at least he gets good healthcare. And then about eight years later, they let him out, and a few years after that, he passes away. Dude lived a crazy life.