Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Five men convicted of conspiring to steal 53 million pounds ($105 million) from a Securitas AB depot in the largest cash heist in U.K. history were sentenced to as long as 30 years in prison today.

Stuart Royle, 49, Lea Rusha, 35, Jetmir Bucpapa, 26, and Roger Coutts, 30, were convicted at London's Central Criminal Court and sentenced to 30 years for conspiring to kidnap, rob and possess a firearm. Ermir Hysenaj, 28, received a 20-year sentence on the same charges. The men are all eligible for parole after serving half of their prison terms.

Prosecutors said the men, some disguised as police officers, were part of a group that kidnapped the manager of a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, England, which stored money for the Bank of England and other businesses. Police are still searching for more than half of the fortune two years after the robbery.

``This was organized banditry for uniquely high stakes,'' Justice David Herbert Penry-Davey said today. He called the robbery ``meticulously prepared and ruthlessly executed.''

Robbers kidnapped depot manager Colin Dixon and his family at gunpoint, tied up 14 employees, and forced Dixon to open the building in a crime that took a year to plan and 100 investigators to unravel.

Employees were ``coldly and violently threatened before being trussed up and locked in cages'' Penry-Davey said.

While Hysenaj was the so-called ``inside man'' who secretly filmed the depot with a belt camera, he was not in the depot on the night of the robbery, prosecutors said.

Lighter Sentence

Michael Boardman, Hysenaj's lawyer, argued for a lighter sentence saying there was no evidence that his Albanian-born client was violent and he had no previous convictions which put him in a ``different sentencing bracket.''

Lea Rusha, who has a criminal record including grievous bodily harm that dates back to 1989, should have received a lighter sentence, his lawyer Graeme Wilson argued.

``No firearm was discharged. No person was seriously injured'' during the robbery, Wilson said.

Gisela Lindstrand, a spokeswoman for Securitas Group, didn't immediately return a phone call today.

Two men who stood trial alongside the group, John Fowler, 59, and Keith Borer, 54, were acquitted yesterday. A second trial involving more suspected gang members is to start in April.

To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Byrne in London at cbyrne12@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 29, 2008 13:05 EST