Marco Muller dead at 71: Ex-footballer turned bank robber dubbed ‘Swiss Robin Hood’ dies after 36 years on the run

A FORMER top-flight star turned jailed bank robber has been found dead after 36 YEARS on the run from police.

Marco Muller, 71, played for current Swiss Super League champions Young Boys during the Seventies.

The defender also won Swiss youth international caps, and played for lower-league club SR Delemont.

But Muller turned to a life of crime after hanging up his boots aged just 20, and was dubbed the Swiss Robin Hood.

He robbed a series of banks and cash-in-transit vans during the 1980s, netting a haul estimated at over £2.5million.

Muller escaped from Jura prison while serving time for a string of armed heists.

Later re-arrested, he went on the run while on remand in Berne jail in 1988 and was never recaptured.

He had been due to answer charges of holding up cash vans in Geneva and Delemont.

Muller's story ended tragically when his body was found by a railway line near his home town Bassecourt last month.

His identity was only confirmed by DNA tests last week.

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The fugitive footballer had been thought to be hiding out in France in the intervening years.

Muller's former accomplice Andre Jaggi said: "I don't think Marco returned to his home town while he was on the run.

"He wasn't stupid. Even in disguise he would have been recognised here from his way of walking.

"The police came to tell me he was dead. It gave me a funny feeling.

"He used to keep the lion's share of the money after robberies. Then he would borrow more from me, and say he'd repay me after the next heist."

Yves Girard, 71, worked in a bank in Bassecourt raided by Muller in 1979.

He recalled: "The guy came in wearing a red wig and a long coat, like in a Sergio Leone film.

"He pulled out sticks of dynamite, and told me to get all the money out of the safe or else I'd be blown sky high."