Ronnie Biggs - Australia

Australia

In 1966, Biggs took a BOAC flight to Sydney, where he lived for several months before moving to the seaside suburb of Glenine in Adelaide, South Australia. He was soon joined by his wife and two children. In 1967, just after their third child was born, Biggs received an anonymous letter from Britain telling him that Interpol suspected that he was in Australia and that he should move. In May 1967, the family moved to Melbourne, Victoria where he rented a house in the suburb of Blackburn North, while his wife Charmian and his three sons lived in Doncaster East. In Melbourne, he had a number of jobs before undertaking set construction work at the Channel 9 TV studios. In October 1969, a newspaper report by a Reuters correspondent claimed that Biggs was living in Melbourne and that police were closing in on him. The story then led the 6 o'clock news at Channel 9, so Biggs fled his home, staying with family friends in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Five months later, Biggs fled on a passenger liner from the Port of Melbourne using the doctored passport of his friend. Biggs' wife and sons stayed behind in Australia. Twenty days later, the ship berthed in Panama. Biggs disembarked and within two weeks flew to Brazil.