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
Great Train Robbery (1963) did not want the police looking for him, as at the time of publishing (1965) Reynolds, White and Edwards were still on the run. Ronnie Biggs, in his 1994 autobiography, "Odd Man Out", said that Bruce Reynolds offered him a chance to join the gang, if he could find a train driver. Biggs was renewing the front windows of a train driver's house in Redhill, who he calls 'Peter' (and who he believes to be dead by 1994). Ronnie offers him a £40,000 share of the profits, and tells Reynolds and gives his address John Daly who then proceeds to