The three men lived it up while robbing more than 20 banks, including three within the space of less than an hour, all while hiding in plain sight in a rented house in the suburbs of Johannesburg, according to the Saturday Star and South African History Online. “It was about the thrills. We had it all, good food, fun and good sex,” Heyl told the Sunday Times. But the good times weren’t to last. In January 1984, police killed Lee McCall during a shootout at the gang’s hideout, per Lowvelder.
Ten days later, André Stander met a similar fate. He’d traveled to the U.S. under an assumed name and died during a struggle over a gun with Fort Lauderdale police, per the Miami Herald. Heyl flew to Greece and then England with most of their ill-gotten gains but was arrested there in 1985, after pulling a series of solo bank robberies, per News24 and the Birmingham Evening Mail. He would serve nine years in a British prison before being sent back to South Africa, where he served more time for the Stander Gang crimes.
