Their heists were meticulous, and executed with military-style precision. And as soon as one job was done, they would disappear, sometimes for years.

For 40 years, police have been in a cat-and-mouse chase with one of Australia's slickest armed robbery crews - a tight group of Melbourne mates who pulled seven intricately planned jobs over 24 years, starting in the early 1980s.

Now, in part one of two episodes of John Silvester's Naked City, their full story can be told.

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