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BLOODY BOZOS ON THE RAMPAGE

Thousands of marauding rowdies flooded London’s business district yesterday in demonstrations that turned ugly when masked anarchists, anti-capitalists stormed the heavily guarded Royal Bank of Scotland.

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While President Obama met Prime Minister Gordon Brown elsewhere in the city in advance of today’s G-20 summit, the rioters celebrated what they called “Financial Fool’s Day” by pelting police with eggs, bottles and fruit and setting fire to an effigy of a banker.

Financial workers ridiculed the protesters — who ranged from hooded thugs to the Easter Bunny — by leaning out office windows and waving 10-pound notes at them.

Many people didn’t wear traditional business suits in London’s financial district, as workers heeded warnings that they should dress casually to avoid becoming targets for protesters.

One activist died of an apparent heart attack when he collapsed near the Bank of England, police said.

The summit drew demonstrators fired up by a grab bag of left-wing causes. They chanted, “These banks, our banks” and “Palestine will be free,” and waved banners reading, “Make love, not leverage” and “Abolish money.” They carried Tibetan, Palestinian, communist and anarchist flags.

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The most violent incident came at noon, when a few hundred rioters broke away from marchers massed on Threadneedle Street and began a pitched battle with a line of policemen. They ripped helmets off the heads of the bobbies and lobbed a canister of tear gas.

Police sealed off the square in front of the Royal Bank of Scotland. But some of the rioters, wearing bandannas to mask their faces, broke into the bank, stole keyboards and used them to smash windows.

Supporters on the street pelted police with bottles, cans and paint bombs before order was restored by officers charging on horseback.

Another confrontation occurred at the Bank of England where skinheads, anarchists and others attacked police.

Some in the crowd urinated against the bank building, while others scrawled, “Built on blood” on the front. Baton-wielding riot police managed to disperse most of the mob.

Other protests were merely bizarre.

One demonstrator, dressed as the Easter Bunny, managed to hop through a police cordon before he was stopped. A black-clad demonstrator out of “Star Wars” waved a light-saber toy at officers.

And 11 people from a group called Space Hijackers rode to the Liverpool Street railroad station in an armored personnel carrier, complete with a machine-gun turret, to protest Britain’s anti-terror policies.

The vehicle was legal because the protesters bought it secondhand. But the demonstrators wore fake police uniforms and were arrested and charged with impersonating officers.

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On the whole, police managed to contain the latest installment of what has become a tradition of anarchist protests at economic summits, and reported only 32 arrests.

In contrast, several hundred people were arrested at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle in 1999. Police estimated a total of 4,000 protesters yesterday, compared with 50,000 in Seattle.

andy.soltis@nypost.com