The UFC fighter Who Pulled Off a £53 Million Bank Robbery

From poor boy to rich man , from drug dealer to professional fighter and from professional fighter to armed robber .

He fought his way to the top just to lose it all .

Long before he would go down as the mastermind of one of the largest cash heists in human history .

He would be known as a rising star in the realm of combat sports .

He is a man whose world is made up of mayhem , crime and violent insanity .

He is a man that many who knew him would describe as a lunatic and possibly the most dangerous man in sports history .

This is the story of one of the toughest and scariest m ma fighters and career criminals ever Lee Murray .

So make sure to watch it until the end .

A child of English Moroccan descent .

Lee's mother , Barbara was raised in Burmy while the way on vacation in Gran Canaria , she met Murray's father , Brahim Lan Rani , a kitchen hand from the southern Moroccan city of S NI .

Then on November 1219 77 Lee Murray was born as Lee Brahim Murray , Laran in Greenwich , London , England Murray would spend his early days growing up in Plumstead and attending Fox Field primary school , Lee's early life wasn't easy .

However , he had a difficult relationship with his father who would often drink and become violent with his family .

Lee's father struck him and in retaliation , Lee turned and knocked his father out with a single punch .

A neighbor would later say once he realized he could take down a big man like that , I think that's what changed Lee into the man he is now eventually Lee's relationship with his father would grow so explosive that his father would eventually move out .

This would leave Barbara to raise Lee and his younger sister , Regia alone .

It wasn't too long after his father left that Lee would begin attending Eagles Field Boys school .

But after some issues arose with teachers , he was soon expelled .

Lee would then be enrolled at Woolwich Polytechnic School where he developed a fascination with American mobsters and criminals .

His favorite being New York mobster and boss of the gambino crime family .

John Gotti .

After completing his time in school , Lee began living on the streets in the Barnfield projects and would become a member of a street gang referred to as the Barney Boys where their primary activities involved stealing and drug dealing while running with the Barney boys .

Lee would meet fellow criminal and future mixed martial artist , Mark Epstein .

16 year old Lee .

Now 63 and £185 would start to gain a reputation for being a violent individual picking fights with people on the streets , seemingly at random one night while out at a local disco , Lee picked a fight with nine bouncers for fun and ended up knocking every single one of them out .

He would have this to say about that point in his life .

Some people would probably say I was a bully but a bully to me is someone that goes for easy targets and people who can't fight back me , I went for all targets .

Eventually Lee would be convicted of possession of cocaine and cannabis and be sentenced to a term at Feltham Young Offenders institution .

Once released , Lee would devote his time and energy to the gym , lifting weights to help add some muscle to his otherwise lanky build on Christmas Eve in 1998 Lee's girlfriend , Syon Rawlings gave birth to his daughter Lily Jane .

Only a few weeks after the birth of Lee's daughter Epstein and dozens of the Barney boys would end up going to prison .

Lee would be one of the few that would evade capture .

Epstein said that he Lee was the only one that slipped through the net .

I mean lucky boy , but he's always been lucky .

I went to prison for three years .

Lee would marry his girlfriend Rawlings on 24 November 2000 and make an effort to start changing his life for the better .

He decided to go legit by taking up professional fighting .

Lee would start his training at a local gym called London Shoot Fighters where owner Alexis Demetrius would say this about Lee .

When Lee came in , he was a little demonic looking .

Everything Lee touched broke .

All of Lee's knuckles had been broken and were rock hard from being calloused over .

Lee would have his premier fight on the fifth of December 1999 .

At an event called Millennium Brawl that was held at the Hemel Hempstead Pavilion in a somewhat anti climactic fight .

Lee would knock out his opponent , Rob Hudson in the first round .

A fight so quick that Lee would earn the nickname Lightning .

Lee Murray .

Lee was on a high in the rush from his first victory would prompt him to begin to seriously train on the road to becoming a professional fighter .

Lee Murray would have several professionally organized fights in 2000 , the first beam on March 12th against Mike Tomlinson .

However , the night before the bout , Lee would stop off at a local pub to watch the Prince Nasim Hamed versus Viani Bungu fight , a patron of the bar then stood in front of Lee and accused him of stealing his seat after being asked to move .

Murray allegedly knocked the man out .

The man's friend who attempted to aid him , was also knocked out the bartender , then attempted to break up the fight but also found him unconscious when Lee slammed him with multiple knee strikes to the head .

The next morning , Lee found himself unable to close his left hand after taping up his hand .

Murray relied solely on his right hand .

Lee would surprisingly win the fight stating that he caught him Tomlinson with a few good rights .

He was rocked .

So he took me down .

Then I caught him in a key lock on the ground and won the fight .

After that , I went to the hospital and got my hand plastered up .

It was broke in two places .

Lee would then travel to Bettendorf Iowa to train at the Miletic fighting systems camp run by former UFC welterweight champion Pat Miletic .

Fellow fighter , Robbie Lawler would say Lee Murray had world class punching power man .

He would hit the mitts pop , pop , pop , pop , pop and you would stop your workout because it sounded like gunfire .

Lee would win his second fight against Chris Albania but lost the third bout of the year against Canadian submission specialist Joe Dorken in the opening round , Lee's fourth fight of the year would end in a no contest when his opponent Danny Rushton after Rushton collapsed in the first round due to exhaustion .

Lee was quickly gaining a reputation in the sports fighting scene and found himself attending higher profile events in July of 2002 .

Murray was invited to an event after party for UFC 38 .

Even though he did not compete , drinks were flowing and the party was getting lively .

The party overflowed into the alleyway outside when Lee's friend and trainer Pat Miletic entered the alley as he entered a friend of then UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz jokingly jumped on the back of Miletic and pretended to put him in a headlock pro fighter .

Tony F Franklin spotted this and assumed Miletic was being attacked before , you know it .

Men are in a nearby alley and fists are flying in the rush of the scuffle .

Murray would find himself squaring off against the champion .

Tito Ortiz Pat Miladic recalls the scuffle by saying , then I looked over and there's Tito directly past me taking his coat off going after Lee Murray and Lee Murray's backing up the alley , taking his jacket off .

Tito throws a left hook at Lee Murray and misses and right as he misses Lee Murray counters with like a five punch combo lands right on the chin and knocks Tito out Tito Phil face first down to the ground and then Lee Murray stomped him on the face a couple of times with his boots .

Tito Ortiz denies he was knocked out .

However , in 2004 , Murray would rack up an 8 to 21 record in smaller promotional fights before finally receiving a contract with the UFC January 31 2004 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas , Nevada Murray would have his big debut in UFC 46 where Murray would be fighting George Rivera looking to show his opponent and the crowd how scary he could be .

Murray came into the ring wearing a prison jumpsuit and Hannibal Lecter mask .

Murray would proceed to defeat Rivera by triangle choke slash arm bar in the first round .

However , this would turn out to be Murray's only fight in the UFC though the UFC wanted to contract Murray to return to fight Patrick cut at UFC 52 in April of 2005 .

Murray would be replaced by former opponent Joe Dorken .

Murray was having issues with his visa and had to return to England to answer for a road rage incident that had occurred during the incident .

Murray and a 48 year old man got into an altercation in which Murray left the man in a six day coma .

Murray's contract cancellation for UFC 52 led to him signing with Cage Rage , but this too would prove to be short lived as well .

On 28 September 2005 back in the UK .

Murray found himself in another bar fight during the birthday party of British Glamour model Lauren Pope .

During the fight , Murray is stabbed multiple times suffering a punctured lung and a severed artery .

Lee would later recall the incident saying I got stabbed in the head first , I thought it was a punch when I felt the blood coming down my face , I just wiped the blood and just continued to fight next .

I looked down at my chest and blood was literally shooting out of my chest .

I looked down and I knew I had been stabbed in the heart .

By the way , the flow of blood was coming out of my chest .

It was literally flying out of my chest like a yard in front of me .

Murray would stumble down the street before being found by two women who called an ambulance .

While in the hospital .

The doctor had to resuscitate Murray four times during the operation , one of which times Murray would be dead for three minutes .

Murray was losing so much blood that nurses had to constantly run bags of blood from the blood bank in order to save his life .

Though Murray ultimately survived the attack .

It would prove to be the end of his UFC career on February 21st , 2006 .

Colin Dixon is driving home from his day working at Securities Depot in Tonbridge England .

He would be pulled over for speeding and ask Dixon to exit the vehicle .

Dixon would comply and quickly find himself handcuffed with his feet bound and mouth gagged in the back of the cop car .

Dixon would recall one of the two imposter officers saying to him at gunpoint , you will have guessed we are not , policemen don't do anything silly and , and you won't get hurt .

We are noting about this is a nine millimeters .

It was then that Dixon was tied up and transferred into a white van which drove to Elder and farm near Staple hurst , the two men Impersonating police officers then drove to Dixon's home in Herne Bay and spoke to his wife Lynn Dixon telling her that her husband had been in a car crash and that she and her son must come to the hospital .

When Mrs Dixon got into the vehicle , she soon realized it was not a real police car before she had a chance to flee .

The men told her she was being abducted and pointed a gun at her .

They took her to elder and farm where her husband was being held .

Mr Dixon was then interrogated about the layout of the depot building and told that if he did not comply , his family would be shot in front of him .

The next night , the kidnappers as well as other conspirators headed to the depot with Mr Dixon and his family as they arrived , Mr Dixon was led into the building by a gang member dressed as a police officer as his family was held in the back of a nearby box truck .

Dixon rang the bell and signaled the control room operator through a small window .

The operator opened the door and let the two men through the airlock and into the building armed with handguns , shotguns AK-47 assault rifles and a scorpion submachine gun .

The rest of the rest of the robbers rushed into the building .

The robbers were wearing a variety of ski masks and facial prosthetics to conceal their identity .

Dixon told staff of his family being held hostage and begged them all to comply with the robbers demands .

A total of 14 workers on site were then tied up .

Mr Dixon was then forced to disable the building's alarm system .

After the alarm was disabled , the robbers and a few hostages began moving large pallets of bank notes onto their getaway trucks .

The robbers used nicknames like shorty Ky and Mr average but it was the robber that would later be nicknamed Stopwatch that reportedly oversaw the whole ordeal .

Witnesses would give him this nickname due to the fact that the man was seen wearing a stopwatch to time the robbery as seen in the film Ocean's 11 an hour and 40 minutes later , the robbers were gone , having stolen a total of £53 million and used and unused bank notes .

That's nearly 67 million in us dollars .

There would be another £154 million in bank notes that would not fit in the truck and they would have to leave it behind .

The staff were left locked up inside empty cages as Mr Dixon's family , once they were sure the robbers had gone , the staff freed themselves and triggered an alarm which called the police to the scene .

During the following morning , police would discover Murray's crashed yellow Ferrari inside the car .

They would find two of Murray's cell phones containing numbers of other gang members .

One of the phones contained an accidental recording of Murray talking to a Lee about how to carry out the robbery .

Over the next few days , the police would begin to find evidence of the robbery .

A white Ford transit van matching the description Dixon gave police would be reported to be in the parking lot of the Ashford International Hotel .

When the police checked the van , they found a ballot law , a bulletproof vest and the scorpion submachine gun , two bags were also found and when opened , the police discovered over £1.3 million in stolen banknotes .

The van was owned by a Jet mere boss , Papa and Lee Rusa .

On Saturday , 25 February 2006 armed police officers raided the homes of Bo Papa and Rusia at Rush's house .

Police found surveillance footage of Dixon's home , weapons and plans of the depot as well as balaclavas and a radio scanner tuned to a frequency used by the emergency services in the shed behind the house that Monday the police would arrest Bo Papa and Rus in Deptford London .

The police would then search elder and far finding £30,000 in stolen notes in the trunk of a car .

And another £105,600 hidden under a tree by June of 2009 .

In solid prison .

Murray had lost a considerable amount of weight and was being held in a different cell as punishment for being caught with a laptop computer with internet access and 5 kg of cocaine .

Other inmates in the prison held a certain contention against Murray as he was able to use his outside wealth to smuggle in various items whenever he wanted .

It was during this recent punishment for the laptop that another inmate broke into his cell to steal some of Murray's belongings .

As he ransacked the cell , the man found small saws in a plate of biscuits .

The inmate reported it to the guards and an internal investigation took place .

Prison officials would later state that they believe that Murray was planning to cut through the iron bars of his cell window with the saws .

He had smuggled in guards also reported that Murray's drastic weight loss was another effort to escape as his thinner stature would make it easier for him to fit through the prison bars .

Finally , in a Moroccan court in June of 2010 , Murray would be prosecuted for his role in the robbery .

UK Police believe that Murray had worn a disguise when taking Dixon hostage and that he was the person the hostages had called Stopwatch .

Murray was found guilty in the 2006 Securities Depot robbery and recognized as the mastermind of the whole operation .

Lee Murray was given a 10 year sentence for his role in a crime , but this would later be extended to a 25 year sentence on November 30 2010 when Murray failed to appeal the initial 10 year sentence after the sentencing .

Kent police detective superintendent Mick Judge said I'm pleased Murray will now begin serving a significant prison sentence for his part in the Tunbridge robbery .

The Securities Depot robbery would go down as the largest heist in UK history .

Lee Murray is still incarcerated at solid prison in Morocco .

Though he has been quite vocal about his life and fighting career .

Murray currently isn't granting any interviews to reporters but has said that he plans on training to make a fighting when asked by a reporter if he planned to ever professionally fight again .

Murray said I hope so .

I would be very disappointed if I couldn't .

I also think my fans would be disappointed .

I believe I still have a lot to give a lot of great fights and big fights .

Murray has also stated that he hopes to obtain a pardon from the king of Morocco for an early release .

Lee Murray's current sentence is set to end in 2035 and that is the insane story of M ma success story turned Bank Robber lightning .

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