RISE AND FALL OF THE STANDER GANG
◆ Between October 1983 and February 1984, the Stander Gang, comprising André Charles Stander, 37, Patrick Lee Mccall, 34, and Allan Heyl, 32, were South Africa’s Most Wanted Men.
◆ In three years working alone, Stander netted R100 000 robbing banks in Durban.
◆ On January 4, 1980, he was arrested at Johannesburg Airport with R4 000, a balaclava, a revolver, a false moustache and beard in his luggage.
◆ In May, he was sentenced to a total of 75 years behind bars after the Durban Supreme Court found him guilty on 15 charges of armed robbery.
◆ His family claimed his behaviour was in response to the township unrest in Tembisa in 1976.
◆ He was nicknamed the ‘gentleman robber’, a kind of modern-day Robin Hood.
◆ After his conviction for armed robbery, Stander was sent to Zonderwater maximum security prison near Cullinan. It was here that he met Patrick Lee Mccall and Allan Heyl. Both men were bank robbers, and Mccall was also an expert car thief.
◆ Stander and Mccall escaped from custody in 1983. Two months later, they broke out Allan Hey, who was guarded at a Trade Centre by prison warders.
◆ For the next four months, the Stander Gang, as the trio came to be known, were to be front-page news.
◆ Between mid-november 1983 and midjanuary 1984, the Stander Gang robbed 20 banks and stole over R500 000. On January 19 alone, they netted R165 000 from three jobs!
◆ On January 27, 1984, Stander flew to Fort Lauderdale in the US, using a false passport. Three days later, police pounced on Mccall who died in a hail of bullets.
◆ Ten days after Mccall had been killed, he made his own fatal mistake. On February 10, Stander was arrested by the Fort Lauderdale police for driving an unlicensed vehicle – a Ford Mustang, which he had recently bought from a second-hand car dealer named Anthony Tomasello. The car was impounded by the police and Stander, who claimed to be an Australian author named Peter Harris, was photographed and released. That same night, he broke into the police pound and stole the car back. The next morning, he took it back to Tomasello and asked him to have it resprayed. Unfortunately for Stander, that very morning Tomasello had been reading about the exploits of the Stander Gang in his local newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, just as ‘Peter Harris’ walked into his office. He put two and two together. The moment Stander departed, Tomasello got in touch with his lawyer, who advised him to contact the police. That night an elite tactical impact team surrounded Stander’s apartment. At 10.30pm, Stander rode up on a bicycle. He was confronted by Officer Michael van Stetina but attempted to escape. There was a brief struggle for Stetina’s shotgun, and Stander was shot. He bled to death on the wet driveway to his apartment block while waiting for an ambulance.
◆ After Mccall’s death, Heyl left South Africa and moved to the picturesque Greek island of Hydra. He was later arrested at his girlfriend’s mother’s house in Surrey, England. | Courtesy of africacrime-mystery.co.za