The fascinating true story behind SA’S most notorious bank robbers
FIVE bank robberies. Fifteen years in jail. That was the sentence handed down to Allan Heyl in 1977. He was 26 years old and couldn’t face that many years behind bars. By the time André Stander, ex-police captain and convicted bank robber, had arrived at the prison, Heyl was well advanced with his plan to escape. The two of them teamed up, made their escape and proceeded to rob banks at an unprecedented rate. In this fast-paced, no-holdsbarred, no-punches-pulled memoir, Heyl exposes the hell of prison life, revels in the sheer gung-ho audacity of robbing banks and hiding in plain sight, and reveals an inept and incompetent police force. As a member of the notorious ‘Stander Gang’, which both appalled and enthralled South Africans in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Heyl became a career criminal. But this choice of lifestyle had
its consequences … With humour, fresh insight and self-revelation, the last surviving member of the so-called Stander Gang turns a critical eye on himself and the times in which he operated. This book takes you into the heart of a bank robber. Heyl was released from Krugersdorp Prison in 2005 and has since made his living as a motivational speaker. He can be contacted at allanheyl10@gmail.com OVER the weeks, my association with André deepened and he slowly began revealing confidential matters.
I asked him one day why he had been so disappointed in not finding high-quality criminals at Sonnies. He looked at me quizzically, a hint of humour in his eyes. “Man, ai, I thought I could learn valuable insights and tips from real pros and not make the same mistakes as before.”
He had a sly sense of humour, so it was difficult to tell if he was in earnest or not. I decided to take it both ways and asked if he knew the story of the three monkeys.
“What three monkeys?” “Well, for here and now, let me give you one very important bit of advice.” “Okay. Go ahead.”
“You see, there’s these three monkeys: see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing. In Sonnies, you have absolutely nothing to gain from hearing anything confidential from anybody here. Before long, he’s told someone else or several others, and when you look again, you’re suspected of being a grass because someone else has grassed him out.
“The bulk of these guys have spent most of their lives in institutions and prisons. They’re in such desperate need of acknowledgement that giving information to warders is par for the course. It gives them a sense of self-worth. Tell them nothing about anything, and you’ll be okay. So then, why do you need to improve on your criminal ability? Surely, you don’t want to do a long time and then go out, just for more of the same?” I left the question hanging there. “Do you?”
His reply was startling. “There’s nothing I want to do more than rob lots and lots of banks again, and despite what you’ve told me about not trusting anyone, I’ll tell you this: if I have just one day left of my sentence to serve and I get the chance to escape, then I’ll escape.” He said it calmly. He was clearly dead serious. “We need not beat about the bush with each other. So now you know that I’m intent on escaping. I know my secret’s safe with you. So please, if you have a plausible idea about how to get out of here, I’ll be grateful if you’ll share it with me.”
I thought about that. “Well, okay then.” Again, I was about to break what I’d thought was an unbreakable personal pact; and here I was dealing with a maverick of radical proportions.
“All right. Listen, I don’t know the details of your failed attempt at Central, but it seems as though you were set up and they were waiting for you. Sadly, life isn’t that rosy that you can just walk out of a secure prison. The stakes are high, and so are the rewards for that kind of information. My plans for escaping are well advanced. In about eighteen months, I’ll be taken to Olifantsfontein for my trade test. One armed warder will be taking me.”
I laid it out for him and threw in Mac’s distraction plan at the optometrist in case he thought that had some merit. All we had to do was be at the same place at the same time. I had several ideas about how that could work. André seemed taken with the plan.
“So, when exactly do you expect to go for your test?”
Two years had gone by since Vossie had postponed my hopes and plans, but I’d recently completed and submitted the forms to my supervisor, and he had sent them on to Ysterbaadjie. It was a matter of wait and see.
“I’ll know within the next eighteen months or so,” I said. “I know you’re impatient, but having already had one failed attempt, you cannot and will not get another chance. So let’s not be impatient and end up doing something stupid.”
He could see the sense in that, and we came to an understanding. We started spending more and more time in each other’s company, and we had good reason for this.
André was studying for a BA degree in English through Unisa, and as I always had quality works of literature to read, we spent time discussing the Brontës, Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald. André was also a fanatical Bob Dylan fan and could quote Dylan’s lyrics off by heart. A former police captain, born and raised in Pretoria, and the son of a police general, André Stander was the stuff of fiction, or rather pulp fiction. As a character, he seemed completely implausible. If you’d made him up, no one would have believed you. Yet, that was André Stander, a walking contradiction. After Hemingway and Fitzgerald, we went on to John Steinbeck and James Joyce. In turn, he introduced me to such wonderful contemporaries as Saul Bellow and Garrison Keillor. Treasures both.
One of the enduring memories I have from that time is of André, in an upbeat mood, giving his exaggerated imitation of Danny in Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat. “Ameego, my leetle friend, I have for you here two great steaks of God’s own peeg.” He would crack up with hysterical laughter.
When we were not discussing literature, we were focused on an intense physical training regime that was almost barbaric. By overcoming and defeating pain, that marker of mental endurance, we felt we were gaining control of the self.
It was as if we were preparing ourselves for a major battle with the powers in control of society. In my case, it counteracted my constant sense of futility by giving me purpose, and it kept my depression in check.
One thing we never discussed was politics. Many years earlier, I had rejected politics as the ultimate form of self- interest and self-importance practised by megalomaniacs.
Obviously, there were exceptions, but they were too few to matter.