LONDON (AP) — Ronnie Biggs was a petty criminal who set out to transform his life with the daring heist of a mail train packed with money.

The plan worked in ways he could never have imagined.

Biggs was part of a gang of at least 12 men that robbed a Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train in the early hours of August 8, 1963, switching its signals and tricking the driver into stopping in the darkness. The robbery netted 125 sacks of banknotes worth 2.6 million pounds — US$7.3 million at the time, or more than US$50 million today — and became known as “the heist of the century.”

Biggs was soon caught and jailed, but his escape from a London prison and decades on the run turned him into a media sensation and something of a notorious British folk hero.

He lived for many years beyond the reach of British justice in Rio de Janeiro, where he would regale tourists and the media alike with stories about the robbery. He appeared to enjoy thumbing his nose at the British authorities and even sold T-shirts and other memorabilia about his role in the robbery.

He was free for 35 years before voluntarily returning to England in 2001 on a private jet sponsored by The Sun tabloid.

Biggs died yesterday at 84, daughter-in-law Veronica Biggs said. She did not provide details about the cause of death.

Most of the Great Train Robbery gang was caught and sentenced to long terms in jail. Biggs got 30 years, but 15 months into his sentence he escaped from London’s Wandsworth Prison by scaling a wall with a rope ladder and jumping into a waiting furniture van.

It was the start of a life on the run that would hone his image as a cheeky rascal one step ahead of the law.

Biggs fled to France, then to Australia and Panama before arriving in Rio de Janeiro in 1970. By that time, life on the run and plastic surgery to change his appearance had eaten up most of his loot from the robbery.

In all, he spent more than 30 years in Brazil, making a living from his notoriety. For a fee, he regaled journalists and tourists with the story of the heist and offered T-shirts with the slogan “I went to Rio and met Ronnie Biggs … honest.”

Biggs had not been one of the ringleaders of the robbery, but he became its most famous participant. The British media remained fascinated with him until the end.

The 50th anniversary of the train robbery this year brought a slew of new books and articles, and the very day of Biggs’ death coincided with a long-planned BBC television show about the crime.

Biggs foiled repeated attempts to force him out by deportation, extradition and even kidnapping.

British detectives tracked him down in 1974, but the lack of an extradition treaty with Brazil saved him. When Brazil’s military government tried to deport him, Biggs produced a son Michael with a Brazilian woman and the law again prevented his expulsion.

In 1981, two men posing as journalists grabbed Biggs at a Rio restaurant, gagged him, stuffed him into a duffel bag and flew him to the Amazon River port of Belem. From there they sailed to Barbados, expecting to turn Biggs in and sell their story to the tabloids. But Barbados also had no extradition treaty with England and sent him back to Rio.

In 1997, Brazil’s Supreme Court rejected an extradition request on the grounds that the statute of limitations had run out. At the time, Biggs said he didn’t want to go back to Britain.

“All I have to go back to is a prison cell, after all,” he said. “Only a fool would want to return.”