OZARK, Mo. — A British armored car guard suspected of driving off with a fortune worth $1.5 million back in 1993 has been captured in rural Missouri, where he had been working as a cable guy and raising a son who apparently knew nothing of his father's past.
Edward John Maher, now 56, was dubbed "Fast Eddie" in news reports after the heist in England, but he quickly vanished. After nearly two decades as a fugitive, he was arrested Wednesday in an apartment in the tiny town of Ozark, 160 miles southeast of Kansas City, where he had been living under a brother's name, Michael Maher.
In his effort to stay hidden, Maher fled from Britain with his family and may have moved several times within the U.S. Property records suggest he lived in at least four states in New England, the South and the upper Midwest.
FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said federal officials do not know what happened to the money.
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Maher's guise began unraveling Monday, when Ozark police received a tip that a man going by that name was really a fugitive from Britain. An officer compared his driver's license photo with a picture from 1993 and contacted the FBI, which also compared the photos and determined they were likely the same man.
Maher is accused of driving off in an armored car while a fellow security guard was making a delivery to a bank in Suffolk, England. The van was later abandoned. Fifty bags containing coins and notes worth 1 million pounds, or $1.5 million, were missing.
