The Provisional IRA has denied it had any involvement in the £22 million bank raid in Belfast on Monday.
"We are dismissing any suggestion or allegation that we were involved," a senior republican source said today.
The PSNI have yet to rule out paramilitary involvement in the heist. "No one is taken off our list of suspects just because they say they didn't do it," a police spokesman said in response to the IRA claim.
Police have released CCTV footage of the van in Belfast and staged a reconstruction of the robbery this afternoon in an effort to jog the public's memories.
Police admitted today they narrowly missed catching the gang responsible. They were outside the bank headquarters moments after a white van made off with the last of the robbers' haul.
The PSNI confirmed they had investigated a report of suspicious activity in Wellington Street beside the bank at around the time the robbery took place.
A man and woman approached a traffic warden in nearby Donegall Place at around 8.10pm to report suspicious activity involving two men and a white van beside the bank. The traffic warden relayed the information to police shortly after 8.13pm and they reacted immediately, said a PSNI spokeswoman.
"By 8.18pm two uniformed officers were patrolling Wellington Street on foot and CCTV in the area was being checked. There was no van present."
By that time the van is understood to have been gone for just three minutes and to be speeding along the Westlink which takes traffic out of Belfast either via the M1 or M2 - or into both republican and loyalist west Belfast.
Police denied there was any suggestion they had botched catching the bank robbers. "That was not the police's fault, it was not a botched police investigation - I want to nail that," said Chief Superintendent Andy Sproule, who is leading a team of 45 detectives investigating the robbery.
Police and bank officials are preparing to circulate the serial numbers of around £12 million sterling in new Northern Bank notes taken in the raid. It should make the money nearly useless to the gang.
Further details of the heist emerged yesterday. Mr Sproule confirmed the operation began on Sunday at 10 p.m., some 20 hours before the theft of the £22 million began in Belfast city centre.
Three masked men arrived at the home of a Northern Bank official, Mr Chris Warde, from Poleglass, near Dunmurry, Co Antrim. He was at home with his parents, his brother and his brother's girlfriend when they were held at gunpoint.
He was then taken to the home of a senior bank colleague, Mr Kevin McMullan, in Loughinisland, near Ballynahinch, Co Down, some 20 miles away. The Warde family was held at gunpoint for 24 hours.
Two men posing as PSNI officers had called to the McMullan home, also at about 10 p.m., on the pretext of informing the McMullans that a relative had been involved in a fatal road accident. Once in the house the pair held the family at gunpoint.
Following Mr Warde's arrival the gunmen interviewed the officials separately about the bank's procedures. The kidnappers displayed knowledge of banking systems, Mr Sproule said. At about 11.30 p.m. Mrs McMullan was taken to an unknown location and kept blindfolded for nearly 24 hours.
The gunmen left the McMullan house at 6.30 a.m. on Monday and told the men to go to work at midday at the bank's cash centre at Northern Bank headquarters. This would have been normal practice as the cash centre operates a shift system. The two officials were told their families would be harmed if they did not co-operate.
At 6 p.m. one of the officials took a hold-all containing about £1 million to Upper Queen Street a few yards to the rear of Northern Bank headquarters, where it was collected by another man. Detectives believe this may have been a "dummy run" by the thieves to ensure the police were not about to move in.
The success of this part of the operation was the green light for the robbery to continue.
For the following two hours, the remainder of the stolen cash was loaded into plastic containers and on to trolleys before being collected in a distinctive box-style lorry, similar to a Ford Transit, with a lift at the rear.
The lorry was driven towards the Westlink which connects the North's two motorways.
Later on Monday evening, Mrs McMullan was released at a location thought to be Drumkeeragh forest near Dromara, Co Down. Her car was set alight by her captors as they left.
The gang will have great difficulty laundering the money because nearly all of it is in Northern Ireland banknotes, which are almost unusable in Britain.
Police sources said at least £13 million of the money is in new notes, some of which have consecutive serial numbers. Of that amount, £12 million is in new Northern Bank £10 and £20 notes, and more than £1 million is in new £100 and £50 notes. The PSNI is preparing lists of the relevant serial numbers.