Meet the most audacious granddads this side of a Sunday roast.
The so called “grandpa gang” pulled off the largest burglary in English history in
April 2015.
The group of four men robbed a safety deposit building in the world famous Hatton Garden
area of London – well known for its jewelry and diamond stores.
The gang hobbled away with £14 million worth of diamonds, jewelry and cash.
But let’s not all get too excited, these weren’t your average grandpas, who got overly
frustrated at bingo and decided to plan a grand larceny out of the blue.
Every member of the gang was a seasoned criminal who had a long rap list of armed robberies
between them.
Hey, with life expectancy’s rising along with the retirement age, you can’t blame
them for not wanting to hang it up just yet.
The ringleader and mastermind of the plot is a man codenamed “Basil” – the group
originally settled on Mr. Pink, but he was having none of that.
Other members of the group were nicknamed “Mr. Ginger, Mr. Strong, Mr. Montana, The
Gent, The Tall Man and The Old Man”.
This sounds like a movie just waiting to happen.
It was a well orchestrated, ambitious and daring plan, all thought up by a group of
cockney granddads in a pub in Islington, seriously thought it’s like the cast of Snatch have
returned for a reunion 30 years later.
The youngest of the group was 48 years-old, whilst the rest where in their 50s, 60s and
70s, the eldest being ringleader Brian Reader at 76.
Better yet, Brian Reader actually used his senior citizen’s buss pass to get to the
scene of the crime.
You’ve got to admire these gent’s tenacity.
It’s believed eleven men where involved in the planning of the burglary, but only
four of the men actually carried out the theft, those four also happened to be the eldest
and most experienced of the group.
So how did they do it?
Well it was no small feat, the audacious plan was three years in the making.
To start, the burglary was perfectly timed to take place on the long Easter weekend,
a four-day holiday in the UK.
This gave them four full days to perform the theft when they knew the safety deposit boxes
would not be manned.
The main man, Basil, who’s identity is still unknown, was an insider who the police believed
either worked at or had strong connections with Hatton Garden Safe Deposit LTD, for months
or even years before the robbery took place.
The four men approached the building disguised as garbage collector’s pushing wheelie bins,
the bins of course having a double use, as they were also used to transport the stolen
goods out of the building afterwards.
The gang then used Basil’s insider knowledge to enter the building via the elevator shaft,
they then climbed down to the basement and drilled through the thick concrete wall of
the underground vault using an industrial diamond-tipped power drill.
And then they robbed the vault!
No… not quite, remember, this was a sophisticated, elderly gentleman’s caper, this wasn’t
a smash and grab and they’re certainly not in the hood.
So they took their sweet time, after a full day of drilling the men were too exhausted
to carry on and were foiled by a metal cabinet inside the vault which they couldn’t shift.
So they all went home for a cuppa and a crossword presumably, then returned the next day, entered
the vault and stole 73 deposit boxes containing £14 million worth of fine gemstones and luxury
goods.
But the escapade wasn’t without its blunders.
The daring old gents actually triggered the alarm during the first day of the robbery.
So surely that was game over?
No, security guards came but declared it was a false alarm and left.
“Bloody ‘ell guv’nor that was a close one”, we can only imagine the gang remarked
before continuing along their merry way.
This was a proper old-school caper.
The gang used walkie-talkies to communicate to avoid being tracked by the police.
You won’t find this lot using burners and fancy internet VPNs.
So what became of this bunch of old-timers?
Well the gang may have gotten away with many robberies in the past, but their old age must
have caught up to them as they left a few clues with eventually led to the arrest of
all but one individual involved in the robbery.
One of the police detective’s biggest clues was that gang member Daniel Jones bought a
hydraulic pump in a specialist hardware shop in Twickenham, 15 miles from the scene of
the crime.
But the silly bugger only went and gave his real name and address to the sales assistant.
All-in-all the gang may have just been a bit out of their depth and out of practice with
all the new fangled technology and techniques the police now use to track down criminals.
They were definitely trying to brush up on it all as the police found a “Forensics
for Dummies” book in one of the men’s apartments.
You just couldn’t make this stuff up.
So who was the one man that did get away?
It was of course the infamous, the incredible, the main man at the heart of it all, “Basil”.
Whilst all his cohorts are now serving time, to this day, the police still have no idea
as to the identity of whereabouts of Basil, what they do know is that wherever he is,
he has a cool £10 million worth of diamonds on him.
Rumour has it he used his new found wealth to start a hotel in Torquay with his wife
Sybil.
I guess we’ll never know.