Attila Ambrus: The legend of the Whisky Robber

It's a story made for Hollywood, but this is a true-life tale of a Transylvanian-born ice-hockey player turned bank robber. A gentleman- bandit who slugged back a shot of whisky before each of his 29 heists across Budapest, and who, when finally arrested, escaped from prison by tying sheets together. Now incarcerated in a high-security jail, Attila Ambrus, known as the "Whisky Robber", is serving 15 years for armed robbery, but his status as a Hungarian folk hero is assured. He gave flowers to female cashiers as he held up the banks, went home to pick up his dog with the police on his tail, and fled one crime scene by diving into the Danube.

For many Hungarians, Ambrus is a post-modern role model, who tapped into the peculiar Zeitgeist of the time between Communism and capitalism, when the one-party state dissolved, leaving something of a vacuum in its wake, and everything was up for grabs. When once state-owned companies were simply appropriated by the directors, and national assets sliced up and handed out like pieces of cake, who could criticise a man for doing the same in public as the élite were doing behind closed doors? As the national paper Magyar Hirlap said: "He didn't rob banks. He merely performed a peculiar redistribution of wealth, which differs from the practices of the élite only in its method."

And Ambrus had a certain style: blowing much of his total 196 million forint haul (about £440,000) on holidays abroad, each time with a different girl, gambling away the rest, or buying drinks and presents for his team-mates at Ujpest (UTE), the leading hockey team in Budapest. After his escape from prison in June 1999, approval ratings rocketed to 80 per cent. All this adulation for a man who was, after all, an armed robber, infuriated the authorities. As Lajos Varju, the police officer in charge of the hunt for Ambrus said: "I can't believe that several million people exist in this country who can be fans of a criminal. The social situation created this."

Born in 1967, in the town of Csikszerda, deep in Romania's Transylvanian mountains, Ambrus was one of many tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians to flee to the motherland to seek their fortune. Part of Hungary until 1920, Transylvania was ceded to Romania, leaving over two million ethnic Magyars stranded on the wrong side of the border. With a conviction for stealing and a stint in the Romanian army behind him, Ambrus arrived in Budapest in 1988, a year before Hungary's Communist government finally toppled. Even then, it was clear that a new era of freedom and opportunities was dawning.

Ambrus wanted to play for UTE. He was offered a job cleaning the rink, with the chance to stand in for the goalkeeper. UTE paid him a tiny salary and gave him a room little bigger than a cupboard in which he could sleep. His colleagues recall that he was a dedicated player, who never missed a match or practice in eight years. But Ambrus's lack of money was beginning to hurt, as well as the condescending attitude of native Hungarians, who tend to look down on their brethren from Transylvania. "I realised that you can't achieve anything without money and whoever has money has power," Ambrus explained in an interview.

So he bought a wig, and shaved off his beard but left a moustache, which he planned to remove later, and began to reconnoitre possible targets. His first heist, on 22 January 1993, brought him 460,000 forints, (about £3,200). "I'd never seen so much money. That's when I realised how easy it was to make money without having a nine-to-five job." Bucked by his success, two months later he brought home 660,000 forints (£5,000) from his next hit. When his team-mates asked where his new car came from, he told them he was a gigolo, and was smuggling animal skins. As his prowess and confidence grew, Ambrus soon became addicted to the adrenaline buzz of robbery. "It became like a game. When I started getting into the role, I got kind of an urge. And I managed to give the authorities a ride so many times, it became something of a sport. After a while, my main point was to succeed."

The incompetence of the Hungarian police only boosted Ambrus's standing as a folk hero. In the early 1990s, before organised crime gained the foothold it now has in Hungary, banks and post offices were simply not prepared for the possibility of armed robbery, a crime almost unknown under the old Communist system. Few had security guards or alarms. Only one of those robbed had a video camera, but the pictures of Ambrus were so low-resolution that they were next to useless. "Up until the early Nineties, there were almost no robberies in Hungary," says Lajos Varju. "The lack of professionalism in evidence-gathering was embarrassing."

When politicians are seen as licensed criminals, and the police are widely viewed as corrupt and incompetent, everyone will cheer on a bank robber, says Professor Gyorgy Csepeli, a sociologist. "The Hungarian police have a credibility crisis. They are very active against Gypsies or juvenile delinquents but they are absolutely inept at dealing with the big issues. There is tangible resentment in the Hungarian psyche towards the state, most or all state officers, and those in power. It is normal in this post-Socialist country to support those who are weaker and who take risks not to pay taxes to the state. Ambrus was looked upon as a hero as he took risks to achieve what he wanted, unlike those in positions of authority who steal and cheat."

At the same time, Ambrus was a highly visible symptom of a much deeper malaise. Front companies for organised crime have set up shop in Budapest, running money-laundering operations, much of the profit of which is injected straight into the consumer economy. It's a common sight to see muscle-bound young men tearing down Budapest's boulevards in shiny new BMWs, with solarium-tanned trophy girlfriends at their sides and thick ropes of gold clanking round their necks as they chatter on minuscule mobiles. Meanwhile, many Hungarians struggle to get by on a salary of less than £200 a month.

Most humiliating of all for the police was Ambrus's 13th robbery, in August 1996. After knocking back his usual whisky in a nearby bar, Ambrus walked into a nearby bank – disguised as Lajos Varju, complete with moustache. As the robbery progressed, one of the bank's workers phoned the police. The officer who took the call asked, "Are you sure you're having a robbery?". A few minutes later, Varju and his men headed to the crime scene. Two police cars crashed on the way. The television station TV2 was already on air with a live report when Varju finally arrived, and the whisky robber was long gone. TV2's reporter turned to camera, saying: "And last, but not least, here come the police".

And it was getting dangerous. In March 1998, a gunfight erupted between Ambrus and the police after a passer-by called the police while Ambrus and his accomplice – team-mate Gabor Orban – were on a job. The gentleman-bandit was turning into a potential killer. By the following January, during robbery number 27, the police had sharpened up their act and were on the tail of the robbers as they headed towards the Danube. Ambrus escaped by jumping down to the riverbank, but Orban was caught. Ambrus went home for his car, passport and dog, packed and headed for the Romanian border. But Orban had revealed his partner's name after vigorous interrogation by the Hungarian police, and the border guards were waiting for him.

It was Ambrus's escape from prison in 1999 that catapulted him into national superstar status. Weaving strips of bedsheets, towel, shoelaces and computer cable together, he climbed out of a fourth -floor window, and made his way down, dropping the last few metres as the "rope" was too short. The Whisky Robber was out, albeit with two damaged ankles. The country went wild. Ambrus was eulogised in a hit rap song; there was talk of a video game, and an energy drink to be named after him. The Magyar Hirlap proclaimed: "Our national hero, the bank robber".

Hungary's law-enforcement agencies and the authority of the state itself were being humiliated by Ambrus's antics. Orders came down from on high: get the Whisky Robber. Over 300 police officers were put on the case. Ambrus knew it was time to run, but only after one last, big robbery that he hoped would net enough for a new life. In October 1999, after downing not a glass but almost a bottle of whisky, he burst into a bank in downtown Pest, yelling: "You know who I am, I have nothing to lose." Scooping up millions of forints, in his drunken excitement he lost the key to the bank's doors that he had just locked. Shooting into the air, he fled into an alley, before hiding for hours under a parked car and then fleeing to his hideout. In the end, it was Ambrus's dropped telephone card that finally did for him. The police were able to link one of the numbers Ambrus had called to his hideout. Four hundred police officers were deployed to arrest him.

Has the Whisky Robber downed his last shot? His sentence may be reduced when the National Supreme Court considers his case later this year. But until then, he will be kept in top-security conditions. The police are taking no chances.