British man wanted in '93 heist arrested in Mo.

OZARK, Mo. — After nearly two decades as a fugitive, a British man suspected of driving off with an armored car loaded with cash worth about $1.5 million has been captured in southwest Missouri, where he appeared in federal court wearing blue jeans and asking for a court-appointed defense attorney because he didn't have enough money to hire one.

Edward John Maher, once dubbed "Fast Eddie" in news reports after the 1993 heist, is accused of stealing the armored car while a fellow security guard made a delivery to a bank in Suffolk, England. The van was later abandoned. Fifty bags containing coins and notes worth 1 million pounds — then about $1.5 million — were missing.

And so was Maher.

According to U.S. property records, Maher, 56, appears to have been in the U.S. for years, moving around New England, the South and the Midwest. News reports from 1993 said he had dreamed of living in the U.S., where he wanted to open a flight school.

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said federal officials do not know what happened to the money.

Maher was arrested Wednesday in an apartment in the town of Ozark, 160 miles southeast of Kansas City, where authorities said he was living under a brother's name, Michael Maher, and working as a cable installer.

Edward Maher's guise began unraveling Monday when Ozark police received a tip that a man going by that name was a fugitive from Britain. An officer compared Maher's 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.

On the same day, Maher happened to be bailing his 23-year-old son out of jail in nearby Nixa when a police officer told him authorities suspected Maher was wanted in England, but they could not arrest him. Because there were no U.S. warrants for either Michael or Edward Maher, police had no reason to take him into custody.

They arrested him later, after immigration officials determined he was in the U.S. illegally.

According to an FBI affidavit, Maher's son overheard what the officer had said and asked his father about it.

The father "was irate," the affidavit said. "Maher told his son that they would have to leave again and threatened to kill the person who tipped the police off about his identity."

The son, Lee King, had been jailed on some outstanding warrants that police found after a report of a domestic situation. Officers concluded it was just a verbal argument.