76 boxes containing 6,800 gold bars weighing nearly three tons … at today’s gold prices would be a staggering half a billion. ibid.
A mastermind unmatched for his sheer brilliance. A career criminal in search of the biggest robbery in history. A man who’d go to any lengths to achieve his goal. A dedication that paid off with a $65 million heist. Masterminds s1e3: The Knightsbridge Heist, History 2011
With 24 bank robberies under his belt he headed to London. ibid.
1983: The problem was how to get 6,000 pounds of gold out of the warehouse. Masterminds e34: Brink’s-Mat Robbery, truTV
$50,000,000 in gold bullion gone without a trace. The impact would be felt worldwide. ibid.
In a daring and perfectly orchestrated robbery a gang stole $50,000,000 in gold bars from London’s Brink’s-Mat warehouse. Police didn’t have a single clue who pulled off this staggering heist. But they suspected an inside job. ibid.
Black [inside man] was the brother of Robinson’s [perpetrator] girlfriend. The guard and the gangsta got to know each other well. Black was neither clever nor disciplined. But he did have something Robinson desperately needed: inside information. ibid.
The target: a diamond worth $350,000,000. The MO: a smash and grab job of monstrous proportions. The mastermind: a criminal genius. The plan: seemingly foolproof. Masterminds e61: The Millennium Diamond
London’s Millennium Dome – an arena on the Thames River filled with exhibitions. At almost 9 a.m. the first visitors are waiting to go in. The main attraction: a De Beers exhibition showcasing some of the most spectacular diamonds in the world. The centrepiece is the Millennium Star, a perfect diamond weighing an astounding 203 carats. ibid.
At 9.27 a.m. cameras spot a bulldozer inching towards the dome. Then it stops. Around the same time a high-speed motor-boat docks at the Millennium Dome Pier. ibid.
The bulldozer ... ploughs through the perimeter gates ... Two men jump from the bulldozer, enter the De Beers exhibition hall and go to work on the so-called impenetrable display-case ... They’re just inches away from the Millennium Star ... De Beers thought it never could be beaten. ibid.
Raymond Betson and his ... gang didn’t realise that they were being watched. ibid.
In 1987 Detective Alan Holmes, a Freemason who had joined the Craft while serving at Croydon Police Station, faced the ultimate test of his Masonic loyalty. Holmes was not corrupt but was under great pressure to betray a Masonic colleague. Scotland Yard’s anti-corruption squad CIB2 believed he knew of crooked links between a Masonic Detective Commander and Mason Kenneth Noye, convicted of receiving part of the £26 million’s worth of gold stolen in Britain’s biggest ever robbery – the 1983 Brink’s-Mat job. Unknown to Holmes, CIB2 arranged for him to be secretly recorded as he gossiped to a fellow detective in his Lodge. When Holmes was told he had unknowingly shopped his brother Masons, he became deeply distressed. One morning in his back garden he shot and killed himself. Darkside of Freemasonry III
20 years ago on 26th November 1983 Britain’s largest ever armed robberies was made to look like a raid on a cornershop by the biggest heist of them all … The gang that broke into the vault at the Brink’s-Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport escaped with £26 million’ worth of the purest gold bars. Brinks’-Mat: The Greatest Heist I, Channel 4 2003
Pure unadulterated gold – and there was three and a half tons to shift. ibid.
Despite the arrest of three suspects and the inside man, no-one at Scotland Yard was any clearer where the Brink’s-Mat gold was. ibid.
£26 million’ worth of gold and diamonds were stolen from Heathrow Airport. It was the biggest robbery in British history. Since then three men have been imprisoned for their part in the robbery but the gold was never found. Secret History: Brink’s-Mat: The Greatest Heist II
The leader of the gang was Michael McAvoy from south London. ibid.
Noye was to remain in custody until his next charge of handling stolen bullion. ibid.
With McAvoy’s inability to return the stolen gold his 25-year sentence was now looking precisely that – they’d be no early release. ibid.
Those living off Brink’s-Mat gold had begun to think they were untouchable. ibid.
The whole Swiss laundering operation came to light. ibid.
I have made more money out of gold than all the Great Train Robbers put together. King of Thieves 2018 starring Michael Caine & Jim Broadbent & Tom Coutenay & Charlie Cox & Paul Whitehouse & Michael Garbon & Ray Winstone et al, director James Marsh, Brian
Something terribly reassuring about a nice vault. ibid. John
On the evening of Friday 16th December 1910 a police constable patrolling in the city of London was called to investigate strange noises coming from Exchange Buildings, a small alleyway near Houndsditch. Great Crimes & Trials s3e20: The Siege of Sidney Street, BBC 1996
Behind, they left Sergeants Bentley and Tucker and Constable Choate dead. ibid.
Among the immigrants came political refugees. ibid.
In the suburb of Tottenham ... Two Latvian émigrés attempted a wages snatch. Foiled, they hijacked a tram and were chased for several miles, shooting indiscriminately at the pursuers. A policeman and a ten-year-old boy were killed before the gunmen were cornered and shot themselves. ibid.
Two hundred policemen, some armed with shotguns, moved into the area in the late evening of 3rd January 1911. ibid.
Their response was to start shooting at anything that moved. ibid.
The request was sent asking for troops to be dispatched from the Tower of London. This was approved by the thirty-six-year-old Home Secretary Winston Churchill, who then hurried to Sidney Street to see the action. ibid.
The anarchists were now keeping up a steady fire. ibid.
A wisp of smoke was seen coming from Number 100. Soon the fire had taken a good hold. Churchill told firemen to stay clear until the roof and first floor collapsed. ibid.
The killing of three policemen in Exchange Buildings and the subsequent siege at Sidney Street shook pre-First World War Britain. ibid.
His [Billy Hill] campaign of robbery, heists and racketeering is poised to change the nature of crime for ever. Wartime Crime I, Yesterday 2018
In 1952 he carries out the Eastcastle Street robbery with a value of over £7 million today; it is the biggest criminal heist Britain has ever seen. ibid.
The 1970s saw a five-fold increase in armed raids. Robbers like Bernie Khan were committing three or four robberies a week ... Alarmed with the crime wave, police fought back with an elite specialised squad of detectives – the Flying Squad. Underworld: London
Meanwhile, the City’s banks and cash-carrying companies were still being targeted. Out on the streets it was business as usual for the criminals. Robberies in London continued to escalate – 734 in 1978 alone ... By the 1980s the recent rash of armed robberies plaguing the City was declining. Security was also improving at banks and in the vehicles that transport the cash. ibid.
Technology had become the ultimate gangbusters ... Armed robberies in the ’70s and ’80s prompted banks and security companies to install hundreds of surveillance cameras. In the early 1990s police added ever more in the streets to combat terrorist attacks. Almost 80% of the British government’s Crime Prevention Budget was devoted to public surveillance cameras. Back in the days of the Krays and Richardsons, in the late ’60s, there were approximately 70 closed-circuit cameras in the all of England. By the time Ronnie Kray died of a heart attack in the spring of 1995, London was literally covered in cameras. No combination. No cash. Then the gang made an amazing discovery. They saw pallets on the floor of the warehouse which contained boxes about the size a shoebox and found out they was gold bars in these boxes ... The gang had stumbled across 7,000 gold bars – three tons ready for delivery. The haul is worth a staggering £100,000,000 in today’s money [1999]. It was the biggest gold bullion robbery [Brink’s-Mat, London 1983] in British history. McAvoy had pulled off the crime of the century. But the gold was about to give his gang more trouble than it was worth ... Some of the proceeds of the gold were invested in property, including the rebuilding of the docklands, part of the original heartland of organised crime in London. But as the money from the robbery spread out, police began to close in. Detectives discovered Brink’s-Mat guard Anthony Black had a sister who lived with a well-known bank robber Brian Robinson. ibid.
It was getting like the wild west. John O’Connor, commander Flying Squad, re ’60s & ’70s bank robberies
In December 1961 Foreman’s gang attacked a bank van carrying wages worth today over a million pounds ... The failed raid left the police with plenty of forensic evidence. The Krays: Inside the Firm, ITV 2000
London was less security conscious in the 1960s. ibid.
In May 1952 Billy Hill allegedly pulled off the biggest heist of the time – the East Castle robbery. Frankie Fraser’s Last Stand, CI 2013