smash-and-grabn.

1927 J. C. Goodwin Crook Pie ii. 52 ‘Smash and Grab’ raids seem to be the order of the day.

1928 E. Wallace Gunner xxii He was a smash-and-grab man.

1928 Daily Mail 25 July 9/3 Motor-bandits..after carrying out a smash-and-grab raid..evaded the whole of the Surrey and West Sussex police.

1928 Daily Tel. 9 Oct. 12/2 Three men in a motor-car were concerned in a smash-and-grab raid... One of them threw a stone through the window. They then seized all the cameras available and returned to the car, which was driven away before a chase could be started.

1930 Bulletin 16 Jan. 4/5 A ‘smash-and-grab’ robbery was reported yesterday by Edinburgh police.

1932 ‘S. Wood’ Shades of Prison House p. ii The smash-and-grab man, the afternoon screwer of poor men's houses, the whiz-man and the homosexual pervert end up—in gaol!

1933 E. Blunden Charles Lamb vii. 206 A literature of the smash-and-grab type..seems to have some chance of superseding the thorough, persuasive, modulated and interwoven style.

1937 A. L. Rowse Sir Richard Grenville v. 106 A smash-and-grab run upon the Isthmus of Panama.

1939 T. S. Eliot Old Possum's Bk. Pract. Cats 23 They were..remarkably smart at a smash-and-grab.

1944 G. B. Shaw Everybody's Polit. What's What? xxvi. 232 Monstrous world wars and smash-and-grab revolutions.

1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride 145/2 A commercial society dedicated to the smash and grab and one-man fury of enterprise.

1965 H. I. Ansoff Corporate Strategy (1968) iii. 39 In reaction to the public outrages at the ‘smash'n-grab imperialism’ of the nineteenth century, business has acquired a sense of social responsibility.

1970 Oxf. Times 23 Oct. 1/6 A smash and grab raid was carried out on the shop of Horns..shortly before midnight.

1973 W. M. Duncan Big Timer iv. 29 They tell me there was a smash-and-grab at Shader's, miss.

1978 Daily Mail 25 Jan. 12/2 Robbery with violence..used to be a ‘snatch’ or a ‘smash-and-grab’.

1938 F. D. Sharpe Sharpe of Flying Squad i. 14 Lower down come the suit-case thieves, the pick-up merchants, small time smash-and-grabbers, [etc.].

1960 Observer 24 Jan. 5/1 A sausage team always had to work three-handed... One to do the smash and grabbing.