Ronnie Biggs time from first meeting to Biggs's flight to Brazil. In 1970, when Biggs arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil did not have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. In 1971, Biggs's eldest son, Nicholas, aged 10, died in a car crash in Melbourne. In 1974, "Daily Express" reporter Colin MacKenzie received information suggesting that Biggs was in Rio de Janeiro; a team consisting of MacKenzie, photographer Bill Lovelace and reporter Michael O'Flaherty confirmed this and broke the story. Scotland Yard detective Jack Slipper arrived soon afterwards, but Biggs could not be extradited because his girlfriend, nightclub dancer Raimunda de
Ronnie Biggs to the train robbery plot. Reynolds gave Biggs the job of arranging for Agate to move the train after it had been waylaid. On the night of the hold up, Biggs told his wife he was off logging with Reynolds in Wiltshire. The gang then stopped the mail train from Glasgow to London in the early hours of 8 August 1963, which was Biggs's 34th birthday. Stan Agate was unable to operate the main line diesel-electric locomotive because he had only driven shunting locomotives on the Southern Region. Therefore, driver of the intercepted train, Jack Mills, was coshed with an