Robbing a bank is totally not as easy as it looks in them movies, but thankfully, we have an ex-gangster to teach us exactly how to go about our big heist.

Jason Coghlan (above) became known as quite the crook in Manchester back in the 1990s, and was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison for his part in a bank robbery in Lancashire in 1998. Coghlan now spends his time running a company who helps expats caught up in foreign legal systems… and also delivers some words of wisdom for aspiring robbers in his spare time.

We know, usually through inside intel or weeks of watching from the back of blacked-out transit vans, that the cash delivery van is there to deliver the bank’s cash consignment for the week. Another giveaway is the number of trips that the cash custodian makes from the van to the bank: they are only insured to carry a certain amount per trip, mainly due to the high volume of game bastards who make their livelihood relieving cash-in-transit guards of their burdens—like me and my little firm. The money gets delivered to the bank, taken directly behind a security door, and into the secure area, where the main vault is kept. Nevertheless, the money cannot go straight into the vault until the staff have counted it, and hundreds of thousands of pounds take time to plough through.

It’s vitally important to grab the attention of everybody in the bank at the very outset.

Coghlan goes onto to explain how he went about his robberies, in some pretty specific detail too. Check out the full story on VICE.