Recent robberies: The £20 million Northern Bank robbery is the latest in a spate of so-called "tiger kidnappings". These involve the taking of a hostage, usually at gunpoint, while a relative is forced to facilitate a theft.
While electronic surveillance is more sophisticated, businesses and financial institutions are at particular risk from employees who are forced to over-ride security mechanisms by armed gangs who hold their families hostage.
Recent high-profile robberies have centred on the greater Belfast area and in west Tyrone. On the night of September 13th, armed and masked men burst into the home of a family at Saul, just outside Downpatrick, Co Down. The mother, along with her son and daughter, were taken by car to an empty house in south Belfast where they were detained overnight.
In the morning the man, who works for a security firm, was told by the gang members to turn up for work as usual at his depot.They also told him to drive his van to a golf club in south Belfast, where around £500,000 was then stolen and the gang escaped.
On October 1st in Ardoyne, north Belfast, a gang held a mother and child while the father was ordered to turn up for work as normal on the Saturday morning. The gang brought a lorry to the Gallahers warehouse in south Belfast where he was an employee and loaded it with tobacco worth about £1.5 million.
Just over two weeks later, up to five men took over a house in the Oldpark area of north Belfast and took a man and two children at gunpoint to a derelict house about 25 miles away, near Antrim.
The children's mother was held captive alone in the family home. The next morning, October 18th, she was forced to go and empty the contents of a safe at a local post office where she works.
It was the seventh robbery at the branch this year.
On October 19th thieves threatened a man with a gun at an off-licence in Omagh, Co Tyrone, before tying him up and stealing a significant quantity of cigarettes. The theft followed similar robberies since July in Co Tyrone in Castlederg and Strabane.
In all, 37 "tiger kidnappings" were recorded in Northern Ireland last year; this year's total is in the low forties.
Mr Sam Kinkaid, an assistant chief constable, told the Policing Board in October: "All paramilitary groups in the last five to six months have been involved in serious robberies in Northern Ireland. That's on both sides of the community."