No one thought that making peace in Northern Ireland would be easy. It is unlikely, however, that anyone put "bank robbery" at the top of the list of obstacles to an enduring settlement. Yet a daring -- although ultimately futile -- bank heist is the latest blow to the stalled Northern Ireland peace process. The crime, the perpetrators of which are still unknown, has focused attention on the Irish Republican Army's troubled relationship with the law. The organization must make a clear and decisive repudiation of such acts, even if it is not involved in this crime.

On Dec. 20, unknown assailants took hostage for 24 hours the families of two workers at the Belfast headquarters of Northern Bank. While they were being held, a gang stole £26.5 million (almost $50 million) from the bank. It was a meticulous operation: The kidnappers were dressed as police and they knew exactly which employees to target to gain access to the bank vaults. The two bank employees went to work as if all was normal. During the day, one of them took £1 million from the vault and gave it to the kidnappers, who apparently were testing to see if the police had been alerted. Bank employees were then sent home early. Then, among the afternoon Christmas crowds, a van pulled up to the bank and the two bank employees unloaded bags of bank notes. The van eventually made two trips before the robbers quit. Even without emptying the vault, they pulled off the biggest robbery in British history.

Ironically, the scale of the crime may render its fruits worthless. The stolen money consisted of brand new bank notes with identified serial numbers, which makes it easy to detect. The bank has said it will replace all of the old notes with new ones in different colors making the heist, in the words of one police official, "the biggest ever robbery of waste paper."