Raymond Bennett, who died when he was only 31, was also known as Ray Chuck. Ray Chuck was the mastermind of the Great Bookie Robbery committed on April 21, 1976 at the Victoria Club in Melbourne.
Bennett was a known armed robber for years, and came from the old school which refused to talk to police about anything.
He was a natural leader of men, well liked and charismatic.
Those who knew Bennett said he was a master strategist with a meticulous eye for detail.
His wife's name was Gail, the couple had a son named Danny.
According to celebrity criminal Mark "Chopper" Read, Bennett was in a class of his own.
"He was a thinker and a top gang war tactician", Read said.
"He was a master planner and one of the Australian underworld's foremost bank robbers".
Bennett lead the 'Kangaroo Gang' with Brian O'Callaghan robbing jewellery shops all over Europe.
The gang, which included Bennett and several other career criminals, preyed on high-class jewellers and fashion houses in the UK and Europe.
They often used attractive women decoys to distract staff during daring daylight raids.
Several members of the gang were believed to be part of the Grandfather Mob, who used similar tactics in raids on courier vans in Australia during the late '90s.
Melbourne bookmakers had met at the Victorian Club's former premises at 141 Queen Street to settle up on the first business day after a major metropolitan race meeting for almost a century.
Huge amounts of money would arrive by armoured car.
Once inside the club there was almost no security. It all worked on trust.
The millions of dollars in cash present each settling day had attracted the attention of criminals.
Several gangs, including one led by the notorious Edward "Jockey" Smith, had conducted preliminary checks on the feasibility of committing the robbery but the job had always appeared too daunting.
Bennett, had the dash, brains and imagination to consider the whole matter as a serious proposition.
At the time of planning what was to be Victoria's biggest ever heist, Bennett was sitting in a jail cell on the Isle of Wight.
Late in 1975, he took advantage of pre-release leave and flew to Australia to case the Victoria Club.
After accomplishing his mission, he jumped on a plane and returned to England and completed his sentence, content in the knowledge that when he was a free man he could turn his attention to the job others had just talked about.
When he returned to Australia, Bennett quickly went about recruiting a team of nine.
Police have said the group was possibly the best gang of armed robbers ever assembled in Australia and that they had specialised in "commando-type raids".
"They copied the methods of an English group called the Wembley Gang which had used similar commando tactic," former Consorting Squad boss Paul Delanis told author Malcolm Brown.
Though the gang Bennett recruited has never been positively identified it is believed that one of the key members was Ian Revell Carroll, a man with the imagination to carry out a big job.
Another apparent member was Anthony Paul McNamara.
Bennett organised "laundering" and called upon a close friend, Norman Lee, a dim sim maker, for help in at least that regard.
Police later said that Bennett and Lee "were like brothers".
There was another man, jailed at the time, who received his share of the haul.
Most of the gang were 'known to police' but one of them, described as a 'time and motion expert' was unknown to detectives.
He lived in a northwestern suburb and had been part of a planning team for major armed robberies in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
Bennett's team allegedly also included Brian O'Callaghan, Laurie Pendergast, Vincent Mikkelson and two brothers.
Bennett took the group to a secret training camp in rural Victoria.
He behaved like a football coach, giving instruction to his team that for three months they were to swear off the booze and keep away from women knowing that loose lips could destroy the job before it started.
He counselled his men to remain calm, be quiet and, when they got the loot, not to start throwing it around.
The robbery was to take place on April 20, 1976.
Bennett chose the date because it was the post Easter settling day and bookmakers would be settling up after not one but three race meetings.
As to minimise the gang's chances of failure, Bennett organised a virtual dress rehearsal during the Easter long-weekend.
According to information later given to police, the gang went into the deserted premises of the club over the holiday and practised what they were going to do.
His plan was to use a team of six to storm the club, backed by at least three others.
The gang, armed with sub-machineguns, held up bookmakers on their settling day and a huge amount of cash was handed over.
The robbers grabbed 118 calico bags filled with cash.
The raid officially netted $1.4 but estimates of up to $15m have been made as to the actual contents of those bags.
Dennis William Smith is rumoured to have laundered some of the proceeds from the robbery.
It was after that robbery that Smith, and long-time partner, Kerry Ashford, opened the sleazy Aussie Bar in the Philippines capital Manila, an offshore haven for major criminals from Sydney and Melbourne.
Police investigators have shown some of the money went to Manila via Canada.
Some of the money was invested in real estate in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.
The gang had a female expert based in Sydney to handle the complex property investments.
Bennett also appeared to have helped out his family.
His mother collapsed in the waiting room of a Melbourne solicitor and when ambulance officers arrived they cut off her clothes to attempt external heart massage.
They found $90,000 concealed in her clothing.
After the Bookie Robbery tensions mounted with other criminals, and apparently some police keen to recover the stolen millions.
Particular animosity had grown between Bennett's team and Painter and Docker brothers, Les Kane and Brian Kane.
During the robbery a boxing trainer, Ambrose Palmer had been referred to by name by one of the robbers.
It was believed Palmer recognised the bandit's voice.
Ambrose apparently kept the mans identity to himself for sometime but eventually let his name slip to one of the Kane brothers.
A group of Sydney criminals known as the "Toecutters" also started making inquiries.
They were an infamous group which used to torture armed robbers who were known to have done big jobs and to steal their money.
Bennett's name started being bandied around, and to the Toecutters he meant trouble.
They decided to leave and his men alone - Bennett would never be stood over and no amount of money was worth what would happen if they tangled with him.
On October 19, 1978, the fiery Les Kane was shot dead at his Wantirna home.
His wife Judy was pushed away by three masked men with machine guns.
She and the rest of the young family were then forced at gun point to listen from another room while Kane was pumped full of lead in the bathroom.
He was bundled into a distinctive pink Ford Futura and never seen again.
Bennett, Mikkelsen and Prendergast were charged with the murder.
The famous Les Kane murder trial featured Colin Lovitt QC.
The trio were acquitted.
Bennett was shot dead at Melbourne Magistrates court on November 12, 1979.
He was about to face a committal hearing for a $69,000 payroll robbery in Yarraville.
From the Police Report comes the following passage:
The deceased appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates Court at 10am Monday 12 November 1979 where he was facing committal proceedings on two counts of armed robbery.
His case was transferred from the main court to the 10th court which is on level one.
Whilst being escorted to this court at about 10.20am. he was confronted by a man who fired three shots at him.
The deceased, after receiving a gunshot wound to the chest and hand, ran down a flight of stairs into the court yard where he collapsed into the arms of two uniformed policemen.
They were Senior Detectives Glare and Strang from the consorting squad and Mugavin from armed robbery.
The two consorting squad detectives assisted Mugavin as most other officers had been called away to a trade union demonstration.
The offender escaped immediately after by going down a back stairway which leads to the car park.
He then made his was through a hole in the iron fence and disappeared into the city.
The two policemen rumoured to have been involved in Chuck Bennett's murder were Paul John Strang and Brian Francis Murphy of the Metropolitan Regional Crime Squad.
Murphy had no business being at the Magistrates Court and happened to be passing by when he saw what he thought was a demonstration.
The coroner found that the officers were in no way involved in the shooting.
Bennett was represented by high profile lawyer, and now judge, Joe Gullaci (left) as well as the flamboyant Robert Roy Vernon (right).
Vernon had an aversion to paying tax.
So much so that he went bankrupt to avoid his tax debts . . . not once, but four times.
On January 27, 2002, it was reported that notorious old-school criminal Patrick William "Jack" Warren had died in Queensland, aged 79.
Warren, better known as "The Fibber" or "The Liar", was an associate of Bennett's Kangaroo Gang.
He was later linked with the Grandfather Mob, a team of mature-age criminals who operated on the east coast of Australia during the '90s.
In 1994, at the age of 70 - he was arrested for his involvement with what was then Australia's biggest cannabis seizure.
The haul, reportedly worth $100 million, was seized when police and Customs officers intercepted a trawler near Hervey Bay, 150km north of Brisbane, in a dawn raid.
Warren was finally found guilty in 1998 of conspiracy to import drugs, after two mistrials.
He was sentenced to four years' jail with a minimum of only one year after a judge took account of his age and ill health.
Police believed Warren also organised a $1.2 million cannabis shipment that arrived in Australia in late 1986.
His history included offences in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Germany, France and England.

Video: Tough Nuts - Ray Bennett