GOLD BULLION BARS WORTH $40 MILLION STOLEN IN LONDON - NYTimes.com GOLD BULLION BARS WORTH $40 MILLION STOLEN IN LONDON By R. W. APPLE Jr., Special to the New York Times Published: November 27, 1983 LONDON, Nov. 26— Six masked gunmen stole almost $40 million in pure gold from a security depot near Heathrow Airport before dawn today. It was the largest theft in British history. The robbers also took two boxes of diamonds from the warehouse, but there was no immediate indication of how much the gems were worth. The police said the robbers, carrying handguns and wearing what appeared to be ski masks, burst into an unmarked warehouse belonging to Brinks-Mat Ltd., at about 6:40 A.M. They overpowered several security guards who were working the night shift, handcuffed them, doused them with gasoline and threatened to set them on fire if they did not cooperate. 3 Tons of Gold Bullion Scotland Yard detectives said the gunmen had made off with about three tons of bullion.

It was understood the gold consisted of some 6,800 bars in 76 boxes, which could be stacked in a space only about 6 feet by 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet, according to a spokesman for Brinks-Mat, a subsidiary of the United States security company. The police said the gold was to have been sent to the Far East, but did not say who owned the gold or whether it was normal for Brinks-Mat to have so much bullion on hand at one time. An hour after the raid, one of the guards managed to wriggle out of his handcuffs and raised the alarm. By the time the police arrived, there was no sign of the intruders. The guards were taken to a hospital for treatment of minor skin inflammation caused by the gasoline. Not an Easy Target The police immediately sealed off the warehouse, which occupies Unit 7 in the Heathrow Trading Estate in suburban Hounslow, west of London. It lies directly under the flight path leading to one of the main runways at Heathrow Airport, which is about a mile away.

The area is nearly deserted early on Saturday mornings, and there apparently were no witnesses other than the six employees of Brinks-Mat. Equipped with automatic doors, a sophisticated alarm system, lights and television surveillance cameras, the depot was not an easy target. It was not known how the robbers avoided the security system or how they removed the gold from the site. A police spokesman said ''they must have had at least two large trucks.'' The police, who spent most of the day searching the 150-foot-long warehouse for fingerprints, appeared to have few clues. They questioned the guards at Brinks- Mat and employees of other companies with depots on the estate as they arrived for work. A spokesman for Brinks-Mat said the insurance company that held the policy on the gold had offered a $3 million reward. He did not name the company. Comdr. Frank Cater, who is heading the police investigation, is also in charge of the hunt for those who stole $10 million from the Security Express organization in London last Easter. In that robbery, as in today's, employees of the company were doused with gasoline, but the police refused to speculate on a link between the two robberies.

Commander Cater said the robbers would have to melt down the gold to dispose of it because the stolen bars were stamped with the refiner's name and bore a sequence of numbers. The largest robbery in British history before today's was in 1975, when more than $12 million worth of cash and valuables were stolen from the Bank of America's branch in Mayfair. The largest robbery on record was at the German Reichsbank in 1945 when Nazi Germany was collapsing, according to the 1983 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Negotiable securities valued at $400 million and gold, foreign currencies and jewelry valued at $20 million were taken. The biggest known robbery in the United States occurred in December of 1982 when $11 million in cash was stolen from the Sentry Armored Courier Corporation in the Bronx. Four men are standing trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan for the crime. In the Brinks robbery in Boston in 1950, about $3 million was taken. The so-called Great Train Robbery in Britain in 1963 netted about $7 million.

BBC ON THIS DAY | 26 | 1983: �25m gold heist at Heathrow 1983: �25m gold heist at Heathrow An armed gang has carried out Britain's largest ever robbery at London's Heathrow Airport. Over �25m worth of gold bullion bound for the Far East was stolen from the Brinks Mat warehouse, about one mile (1.6km) outside the airport perimeter, between 0630 and 0815 GMT. Police have said a group of at least six men overcame the guards and successfully disabled a huge array of electronic security devices. Insurers have offered a reward of �2m for information leading to the recovery of the 6,800 gold bars - which are all identifiable by refiners' stamps. The members of the gang - who were all armed and wearing balaclavas - also stole �100,000 worth of cut and uncut diamonds. Inside information They dressed in security uniforms to get into the warehouse and then terrorised the guards into giving them the alarm codes.

All the guards were handcuffed, one was hit on the head with a pistol and two had petrol poured over them. Once inside the safes, the robbers used the warehouse's own forklift trucks to transport the 76 boxes of gold into a waiting van. The alarm was raised by one of the guards at 0830 GMT after the gang had left. Scotland Yard Flying Squad chief Commander Frank Cater is leading the hunt for the thieves. He said he believed they had inside information and were a "highly professional team". What are some of the most intelligent crimes committed? - Quora Quora 10. BRINKS MAT WAREHOUSE HEIST:1983 BRINKS MAT WAREHOUSE HEIST On 26th November 1923, around 6 robbers broke into the Brinks Mat Warehouse at Heathrow Airport, England and thought of stealing 3 million in cash but instead they got to steal 10 tonnes of gold bullion of worth 26 million. It was later found that the gang was able to get into the ware house with the help of security guard Anthony Black who provided them with the keys to the main room.

But the main mastermind behind the heist was Brian Robinson who was later arrested along with the gang leader McAvoy and sentenced to 25yrs of imprisonment. Black was also prisoned for 6 yrs. However, 3 tonnes of gold has never been recovered since then. 9. KENT SECURITAS DEPOT HEIST:2006 KENT SECURITAS DEPOT HEIST The heist which took place on 22nd February 2006 in England, was regarding the stealing of around 110 million in cash from the Securitas Cash Management Ltd. Depot in Vale Road, Tonbridge, Kent. The manager of the depot, Colin Nixon was abducted on 21st February while driving back home by an unmarked cops vehicle and was handcuffed by those imposed policemen taking him to a farm. Even his wife and son were held as hostages by those uniformed police officials who were then taken to Nixon warning him at the gunpoint to cooperate otherwise his family would be killed. All 3 were headed to the depot where those robbers even tied up other 14 members.

After the heist, some of the robbers have been apprehended and imprisoned while around 40 million of the stolen cash has been recovered. 8. D.B.COOPER HEIST:1971 D.B.COOPER HEIST One of the biggest unsolved air piracy act in the American history which occurred on 24th November 1971 when an unidentified man but known by a common media miscommunication as D.B. Cooper alone hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft, extorted 20,000$ and then jumped out of the aircraft with a parachute somewhere in between Portland and Seattle. Even after years of searches and on going FBI investigation, the heister has never been able to get located neither identified and nor the ransom money was recovered, although it is believed he parachuted to an uncertain fate and did not survive his risky jump. But his case has grown up to 60 volumes of case files till today and remains one of the important cases in the Bureau. 7.

BANCO CENTRAL HEIST:2005 BANCO CENTRAL HEIST Considered to be one of the largest bank heist of history in the world, it took place in 6th August, 2005 as a part of significant planning by a gang of burglers. According to sources, the gang rented a property near to the bank from where they made a tunnel of over 250 feet to the bank’s vault. These burglars used a signboard indicating that the property was a landscaping company and removed massive amounts of dirt and rocks making it look as a part of business to the residents. The tunnel was well built with plastic and wood having its own lighting and air conditioning system. It took them 3 months to dig the whole tunnel, after which finally they entered the bank’s vault, removed 5 containers of 50 real notes of estimated value of 70 million US Dollar or 165 million Brazilian reals. The robbers were even successful in disabling the bank’s internal alarms and sensors. Police arrested 5 men for this heist on 28th September along with 5.4$ million of money.

Since then, only around 7$ million money has been recovered but rest of the 63$ million remains at loss. 6. GREAT TRAIN HEIST:1963 GREAT TRAIN HEIST Occurred on 8th August 1963, at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England, the Great Train Heist became popular because of the robbery of 2.3 million pounds in a post office train by 15 crooks led by the gang leader Bruce Reynolds. The robbers used a fake signal light to stop the train and knocked off the train driver with an iron rod but no use of guns were made. They then moved to half mile farther to the train and stole 120 mail bags containing 2.3 million pounds which is equal to 40 million pounds in today’s time. Due to the fingerprints in the hideout area, 13 of the gang members were caught by the police and imprisoned. But two of the culprits, Ronnie Biggs and Charlie Wilson fled away from the prison. Biggs after eluding from Melbourne to Brazil was tracked down by the cops along with Wilson who was caught after 4 yrs in Canada. 5.

THE ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST:2003 ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST Around world’s 80 % of uncut diamonds are passed through the city of Antwerp, Belgium before getting sold in the market. The city has already been a witness of many big heists but this heist which occurred on the weekend of between 15th to 16th February in 2003, is dubbed as the “Heist of the Century”. It was because large amount of gold, diamonds, and jewellery got lifted from the Antwerp Diamond Centre whose estimated worth was more than 100$ million. The robbers forcedly managed to open 123 boxes out of 160 safe deposits made of steel and with unique key and combination lock. Leonardo Notarbartolo, 30 years old thief was the gang leader of all the robbers who posed as an Italian diamond merchant and lived in a rented office 3 years earlier prior to the crime near the centre to gain credibility and trust. They inserted fake video tapes into the security cameras to by-pass the vault.

Leonardo was soon tracked down and arrested and is serving 10 yrs of imprisonment because of a evidence being left out along with some gang members through their DNA left at the crime scene. In a journal, Leonardo claimed of being a part of insurance fraud attempt by a diamond merchant who hired him for the heist and they actually stole roughly 20$ million. But those 100$ million has disappeared since then and has not been found still. 4. THE KNIGHTSBRIDGE SECURITY DEPOSIT HEIST:1987 KNIGHTSBRIDGE SECURITY DEPOSIT HEIST The heist took place on 12th July 1987 in Knightsbridge, England. A wanted criminal Valerio Viccei along with some more members went to Knightsbridge Deposit Safe Centre and asked for a Safe Deposit Locker. After being accompanied to the vault, they immediately took out their guns and subdued the manager and security guards. Valerio then hung a signboard outside saying that the Safe Deposit Vault is temporarily closed while letting his other gang members inside. They, then broke the safe deposits and stole estimated 60 million pounds (174$ million in todays money).

It was not until 1 hour when one of the guard escaped and alerted the police after the robbers left. Because of the fingerprints on the crime spot it pointed towards Viccei, his accomplices were quickly arrested but he fled away. He was then finally caught when he came back to retrieve his prized Ferrari sports car in England and sentenced to 22years of imprisonment. 3. GARDNER MUSEUM ART HEIST:1990 GARDNER MUSEUM ART HEIST It is known to be one of the biggest heist in history where two thieves dressed as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on 18th March, 1990 after convincing the security guards. But it was just after few minutes, the guards learnt that they were not real policemen after they were tied up and knocked down in the basement in spite of not having weapons. While proceeding to the other parts of museum, they were successful to steal around 12 selected artworks along with few sculptures and historical artefacts whose total worth was 500$ million and even tampered with the security cameras. But since then, neither the 2 thieves nor the artworks have been discovered and case remains a mysterious and unsolved one.

2. HARRY WINSTON HEIST:2008 HARRY WINSTONS HEIST One of the most brazen heists, the Harry Winston heist occurred in 2008 when group of 4 men 3 of whom were dressed as women, broke into an upmarket jewelry store just before the closing time and flew off with diamonds worth 108$ million. According to a source, they took the employees and customers to a corner broke the display cases and filled up the suitcases with diamonds and ran away but without any firings. The stock of Harry Winston store fell down to 9% the next day after the heist and no culprit has been arrested since then due to lack of evidence. But a criminal group of jewelry heists has been under the suspicion of the police named Pink Panther’s. 1.CENTRAL BANK OF IRAQ HEIST:2003 CENTRAL BANK OF IRAQ HEIST Believed to be the largest bank heist in history ever, Iraq Central Bank heist was perpetrated by non-other than Saddam Hussein. Nearly 1$ million was stolen from Central Bank of Iraq in March 2003, a day just before coalition forces started bombing Iraq.

Hussein sent his son Qusay along with few men to withdraw 920$ million on his behalf with a hand-written note costing the dictator around 1$ billion. But Qusay oversaw the cash withdrawals and boxes of 100$ bills which was being loaded on a truck during a 5 hour operation. But he was soon killed by the US forces and Saddam was found hiding inside the hole of a ground. Approximately 650$ million was found hidden in Saddam Hussein’s house walls by the US troops andhttp:// listdose.com/top-10-most-intelligent-heists-ever/ the remaining 350$ is considered to be lost. Source: Brink's-Mat Robbery - The Lads RoomThe Lads Room by admin The Brink’s-Mat raid was the robbery of the century, the stuff of legends in the criminal underworld. On November 26, 1983, a group of robbers burst into the Brink’s-Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport, expecting to find a decent-sized haul of cash – but instead they stumbled upon nearly seven thousand gold bars worth £28 million.

More than twenty-five years later, £20 million of bullion remains unrecovered, and it is thought that most people in possession of gold jewellery made in the UK after 1983 are wearing Brink’s-Mat Scene: 1983 police van and officers Fool’s Gold: The curse of the Brink’s-Mat gold bullion robbery More than 20 people whose lives were touched by the bullion have met an untimely, often gruesome end since the record-breaking raid, an investigation has revealed. When veterans of London’s criminal underworld meet, they grimly refer to the Brink’s-Mat millions as Fool’s Gold. Just after dawn on November 26, 1983, six armed men burst into the Brink’s-Mat warehouse at Heathrow expecting to find £3million in cash. Instead they stumbled across nearly seven thousand gold ingots, worth nearly £28million. The heist turned them into some of Britain’s richest men and filled the pockets of countless other crooks as the gold was melted down and the money laundered to fund shady activities such as drug smuggling.

Just three out of 15 men involved in planning and executing the robbery were ever convicted – robbers “Mad” Mickey McAvoy and Brian “The Colonel” Robinson and security guard insider Tony Black, Robinson’s brother in law. The vast majority of the gold – worth over £500million at today’s prices – has never been recovered. But nearly 30 years on, most of those involved have come to regret the day they ever came into contact with the Brink’s-Mat bullion. More than 20 people connected to the heist are dead. They include an ex-policeman who ended up with an axe in his head, an underworld figure gunned down on his yacht off Corfu and an enforcer now believed to be part of the foundations of the O2 Arena in London. A senior detective who worked on the investigation said he was never surprised by the brutal murders. He said: “These villains were out of control, many of them off their heads on drugs bought with their new-found riches.

“The trouble was that when that money either ran out, or in the case of some of them, never materialised, there was only one way to respond – to kill people to show others that even 25 years after the robbery, if they dared to cross the gang they would still pay with their life.” Bullion: The heist gang came into riches The book, The Curse of Brink’s-Mat: Twenty-five years of Murder and Mayhem by Wensley Clarkson, traces the fate of the men whose lives became entwined with the case. It tells how the idea of a curse was the last thing on the minds of the six robbers who, after tying up guards at the depot, found riches beyond their wildest dreams. Robinson, McAvoy, Brian Perry and three other men managed to disable the security alarm and enter the warehouse thanks to “insider” Black, who worked at the depot. Once inside, they doused the guards with petrol and threatened to set them alight unless they revealed the combinations to the vault, which they knew contained £3million. But when they got inside, they could hardly believe their eyes.

Stacked in front of them were 6,800 gold ingots, hundreds of thousands of pounds, travellers’ cheques and two boxes of diamonds. The men spent the next two hours loading their battered blue Transit van before making their getaway. The stolen vehicle creaked under the weight. By the time the alarm was raised 15 minutes later, the robbers and the loot had vanished. Posh: Brian Perry’s house It seemed like the perfect crime – but none of the gang had experience in gold, so they had to recruit other underworld figures who had. So much was melted down that it is thought that most people with gold jewellery made in the UK after 1993 are wearing Brink’s-Mat. Soon millions of pounds were flooding the underworld and unleashing a tide of gangland violence and murders from London’s East End to the Costa del Sol. The effect was not just felt by criminals. The double-strength ecstasy that killed Leah Betts, 18, in 1995 was almost certainly imported using money from the robbery. Police were certain that the gang must have had inside help and were quick to suspect Black, the last guard to arrive on the morning of the raid.

He confessed that he had provided information and a duplicate key, and named three of the robbers, McAvoy, his brother-in-law Robinson, and a man called Tony White. Robinson and McAvoy had spent six months planning the crime, but on finding themselves millionaires they aroused suspicions by moving from their council homes to mansions in Kent. McAvoy is reputed to have named two pet rottweilers Brinks and Mat. In December 1984, Robinson and McAvoy were jailed for 25 years each while Black was sentenced to six years. But there were still many villains at large and an extraordinary amount of gold – and in the coming years death and betrayal were linked to the infamous robbery. The first death occurred in 1985, when Kenneth Noye (pictured), recruited for his links to the smelting trade, stabbed an undercover detective John Fordham in his garden. At the resulting trial, the jury found Noye not guilty of murder on the grounds of self-defence. He was on trial again in 1986 after police found 11 bars of gold at his home. He got a 14-year sentence.

Cops revealed Shirley Bassey’s hit Goldfinger had been primed to play on the stereo whenever anyone walked into Noye’s lounge. He is currently serving life for the murder of 21-year-old motorist Stephen Cameron in a road rage attack in front of Cameron’s girlfriend Daniella Cable, 17, near the M25. The curse has hit many in the criminal underworld including Great Train Robber Charlie Wilson, who was gunned down at his Marbella home after £3million of Brink’s-Mat money went missing in a drug deal. In 1996, Keith Hedley, a suspected money launderer, was shot dead by three men on his yacht off Corfu. Two years later, Hatton Garden jeweller Solly Nahome, who had helped move hundreds of gold bars, was also shot dead outside his home. Perry, who was jailed for handling gold, died after being shot three times in the head in South London at the age of 63 following his release in 2001.

CAUGHT IN THE CURSE The same year, Brink’s-Mat gang member George Francis, 63, was gunned down at point-blank range in his car outside the courier business he ran in South East London. Three decades on, the hunt for the missing gold continues. And with a new generation of gangsters looking for it, police believe the death toll will rise. Most of the bullion is believed to be buried, with only a few old lags knowing the whereabouts. Most believe it is only a matter of time before the curse of the Brink’s-Mat gold claims its next victim. BRIAN PERRY – Brink’s-Mat gang associate shot dead in Bermondsey, South London, in 2001. JOHN FORDHAM – Undercover policeman who was stabbed to death in 1985 by Kenneth Noye SOLLY NAHOME – Bullion smelter was gunned down in 1998 outside his North London home. KEITH HEDLEY – Money launderer was shot dead by three men on his yacht off Corfu in 1996.

CHARLIE WILSON – Great Train Robber shot at home in Spain in 1990 along with dog. GILBERT WYNTER – Enforcer who disappeared in 1998 is believed to be in foundations of the O2 Arena in South East London. NICK WHITING – Suspected “grass” stabbed nine times and then shot twice with a 9mm pistol in 1990. PAT TATE – Associate of Noye shot dead with two other men in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995. STEPHEN CAMERON – Stabbed to death by Kenneth Noye in 1996 road rage incident on the M25. LEAH BETTS – Died in 1995 aged 18 after taking ecstasy thought to have been imported using Brink’s-Mat money. DAN MORGAN – Ex-cop found dead in South London in 1987. DONALD URQUHART – Money launderer who was shot by a hitman in West London in 1995. GEORGE FRANCIS – Publican who handled gold, shot in Bermondsey in 2003.

JOHN MARSHALL – Associate of Noye shot in Sydenham, South London in 1996. DANNY ROFF – Gangster mown down in Bromley, Kent, in 1997. SIDNEY WINK – Gun dealer believed to have supplied the guns for the Brink’s-Mat raid committed suicide by shooting himself in 1994. ALAN DECABRAL – Witness due to give evidence against Noye ended up peppered with bullets in a car park in Ashford, Kent, in 2000. JOEY WILKINS – Vice king who grassed on Noye died mysteriously in 2007 after an apparent robbery on the Costa del Sol. ALAN ‘TAFFY’ HOLMES – Brink’s-Mat detective shot himself in 1987. MICHAEL OLYMBIOUS – Drug dealer ended up dead in 1995.

Please follow and like us: Please follow and like us: The World’s Biggest Gold Heist - Gold Smart The World’s Biggest Gold Heist Posted on: 13th March 2014 By Anita Google+ Whenever anyone envisions a huge bank robbery these days, they inevitably think of sophisticated criminals who use the latest technology in order to break into bank vaults of the highest security. No doubt these thoughts come from Hollywood movies like Die Hard and Oceans 11 (and 12, and 13). Truth be told however, some of the biggest gold robberies in history were pulled off long before laser guarded banks, computer encrypted vaults and so forth were ever invented. Most were done with very low tech tools and methods, actually. One example occurred in November 26, 1983, when 6 daring robbers broke into the Brinks MAT warehouse located at London’s Heathrow Airport. The gang was easily able to enter the warehouse because they got “inside help” from security guard Anthony Black, and they quickly made their way to what they thought was £3 million British Pounds in cash.

Once inside however they were completely surprised by what they found; three tons of gold as well as a large amount of cash and diamonds. Total worth; nearly £26 million pounds or $43 million American dollars. It was at the time, and it is to this day, the biggest gold robbery in history and was appropriately called “the crime of the century”. With Black’s help the thieves were able to disarm a number of electronic systems that were in place at the time, allowing them to get into the bank vault that ended up holding 6800 gold bars in 76 separate cases. £100.000 worth of diamonds destined for the Far East was also found, both cut and uncut. Since the robbers had expected to encounter only cash, which would have been much easier to carry and transport away, they were highly unprepared to get out of the warehouse with such an extremely heavy amount of gold. What was supposed to be a quick “in and out” job ended up taking them nearly 2 hours as they used a forklift in the warehouse to load the gold into a getaway van that one of the gang members had to actually go out and commandeer.

In a rather macabre twist, they poured gasoline (or petrol, as they call it in the UK) over a number of the staff members who they encountered inside the warehouse, threatening them with a lit match in order to get some of the information that they needed to break into the vault. Another problem that they encountered once they made their getaway was simply that selling such a large amount of gold was not an easy task. In fact, it turned into a major headache and forced the gang to seek the help of an underworld figure known as “The Fox”, who happened to have underworld connections and was able to help them smelt down the gold and sell it. This was done with the assistance of one of London’s most notorious crime syndicates, the aptly named Adams Family, and a jeweler named Solly Nahome. Of the 26 tons of gold that was stolen it’s estimated that approximately 3 tons has never been recovered. What’s also interesting to note is that, on gold jewelry purchased in the UK still to this day, many people refer to it as “Brinks MAT Gold” because of the high likelihood that it was made from gold that was smelted down from the heist.

If you’re considering selling your solid gold jewelry, watches or other objects (and you’re sure that they weren’t part of the Brinks Mat job) (just kidding), here at Gold Smart you’ll find the best service and the fairest offers on solid gold in all of New Zealand. Don’t take our word for it either, Google our name and we’re sure that you’ll find plenty of positive feedback about Gold Smart everywhere you look. Once you do, call and we’ll give you an excellent offer on your solid gold. Brink's Mat: An ex-cop with an axe in his head - and a Great Train Robber shot dead in Marbella | Daily Mail Online comments It was pitch black and icy cold when security guard Richard Holliday arrived to open Unit 7 on a scruffy trading estate near Heathrow Airport. Inside this nondescript warehouse was one of Britain’s biggest secure vaults, used to store currency, precious metals and other high-value consignments. Four colleagues joined him, but the fifth man rostered for duty, 31-year-old Tony Black, was late and when he finally showed up he looked pale, unkempt and apprehensive.

Aladdin's cave: Unit 7 on the Heathrow trading estate, where the £26 million Brink's-Mat robbery took place in November 1983 Black disappeared, mumbling something about the toilet, but instead went to the front door, where his brother-in-law Brian Robinson and fellow robbers ‘Mad’ Mickey McAvoy, Brian Perry and three other men were armed and waiting in a stolen blue Transit van. Thanks to Black, the robbers knew the vault contained gold, cash and jewellery worth up to £3 million. They even knew which of the two security guards had the combination numbers for the safes inside. It was Saturday, November 26 1983, and what followed on that chilly morning still reverberates today. The Brink’s-Mat bullion remains the biggest and most notorious heist ever to take place on these shores. Worth a staggering £500 million at today’s gold prices, the robbery transformed not just Britain’s criminal underworld but the face of Britain itself, its tentacles helping to unleash a tide of illegal drugs and accompanying violence.

The double-strength Ecstasy that killed schoolgirl Leah Betts in 1995 was almost certainly brought into Britain using the Brink’s-Mat proceeds. The consequences have been devastating, too, for the gangsters who took part in ‘the crime of the century’. The Brink’s-Mat gold has claimed more than 20 lives so far, with countless more lives ruined. Some have been shot dead as a warning to the rest of the underworld; others disappeared without trace. As the 30th anniversary of the robbery approaches, there is no sign that the killings are going to stop. Fugitive: Kenneth Noye, who was jailed for handling the Brink's-Mat bullion, being arrested in Spain in 1998 over the 'road-rage' murder of Stephen Cameron Only one third of the bullion has been recovered and the case remains open. Even today, a new generation of British gangsters are locked in a vicious battle for the remaining ingots which, they believe, now lie secreted in the lock-ups of South-East London or the fields of Kent.

‘One by one those involved have been being picked off like targets in a funfair shooting gallery,’ says one of the police detectives involved in the original investigation. No wonder so many of those touched by the robbery believe they have been cursed. The first the security guards inside Unit 7 knew of the raid was when a man in a yellow balaclava pointed a semi-automatic pistol at their faces and told them all to hit the floor. Believing it to be a colleague playing a practical joke, Peter Bentley continued to make the tea. Without a word, the gunman coshed Bentley with the Browning Automatic and he fell to the floor. The guards were cuffed and bound at the shins with heavy-duty tape. Cloth bags with strings were then pulled down over the their heads. The two security men who held the combinations were soon identified. One of them had his trousers pulled down and petrol poured in his lap. He was warned a match would be lit and a bullet put in his head.

The double-strength Ecstasy that killed schoolgirl Leah Betts in 1995 was almost certainly brought into Britain using the Brink's-Mat proceeds Terrified, one guard punched in his half of the combination to the vault before his colleague was pushed forward to complete the sequence, but the numbers had just been changed by the company. Only after 20 terrifying minutes with a gun in his back did he get the code right. It was shortly before 7am when the gang finally stepped inside the vault, where fluorescent lighting revealed a carpet of drab grey containers, no bigger than shoeboxes. Inside each container were 12 perfectly formed bars of pure gold. The robbers prised off a few more lids to reveal the same awesome sight. There were a total of 6,800 gold bars, weighing three-and-a-half tons and worth £26,369,778. They also found hundreds of thousands of pounds, travellers’ cheques and rough diamonds – it was an Aladdin’s cave of treasure. The atmosphere was electric as the thugs hurriedly began passing bars of gold to their battered Transit. It was not long before the vehicles axles were bending under the weight.

More than one eyewitness later reported seeing an old van with a wheezing engine riding very low on its suspension through the streets of Hounslow. Rather than disappear in the days following the robbery, McAvoy – a Bermondsey-born crook and the leader of the gang – told the others to make sure they were seen around their usual haunts. If they went to ground it would be sure to alert the police. None of the gang had experience with gold. So it was not surprising, as word spread across the underworld, that various top London villains, or ‘faces’, let it be known that they would be pitching for the ‘rights’ to turn all that gold into ready cash. ‘The robbery was the simple bit,’ one criminal said. ‘Now the real fun begins.’ The police soon made the connection between Tony Black, the ‘inside man’ and Robinson, his brother-in-law. Eight days later, Black admitted his involvement and fingered three of the gang: Robinson, McAvoy and another South-London hood called Tony White. DEADLY ROLL CALL Stabbed to death by Kenneth Noye in front of girlfriend Danielle Cable, pictured with him. SOLLY NAHOME Financial adviser to the notorious Adams family.

Gunned down by a motorcyclist in London in 1998. Initially, McAvoy was cautious but he then made a classic error by leaving his council house in Dulwich, South London and moving into a mansion on the Kent border. He also bought two rottweilers and named them Brink’s and Mat. Other gang members were irritated by his ‘clumsiness’. Eleven days after the robbery, Robinson, McAvoy and White were arrested and later charged with robbery. Black was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment with a warning from the judge: ‘Never again will you be safe . . . You and your family will forever be fugitives from those you so stupidly and so wickedly helped.’ Then, in November 1984, after a month-long trial, McAvoy and Robinson were found guilty of robbery and each sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. White was found not guilty. The sheer size of the Brink’s-Mat haul of gold bullion had created a huge problem because the gang needed a conduit through which the gold could travel. It had to be smelted, disguised and sold back into the gold industry before it could be turned into cash.

The robbers had to look outside their close circle of associates to find people to handle the gold, and here they made a big mistake. Villains who had known each other for years were now having to put their trust in people such as Kent crime boss Kenneth Noye, who had convinced McAvoy and Robinson he was the best man to help them turn the gold into cash. The other main player was a 31-year-old ‘businessman’ from Bath called John Palmer. He was dubbed ‘Goldfinger’ after he was accused and cleared of dishonestly handling gold from the Brink’s-Mat robbery. At first, Noye was as good as his word. His mob generated a torrent of money for the gang. In the four months following the robbery, one bank handled transactions of more than £10 million, mainly held in grubby plastic bags. But it was while Noye was plotting how to convert yet more of the Brink’s-Mat gold into cash with a South London crook called Brian Reader that the Brink’s-Mat villains hit their second major setback.

By January 1985, Noye, already under suspicion, was being watched by undercover officers, including Detective Constable John Fordham. When he and a colleague moved on to the grounds of Noye’s isolated home in West Kingsdown, Kent, dressed in camouflage gear, disaster struck. Noye’s dogs started barking and Fordham found himself fighting their knife-wielding owner. Fordham suffered at least ten stab wounds and died two hours later. Reader fled. After Fordham’s death, his colleagues discovered a hugely significant piece of evidence linking Noye and Reader to the Brink’s-Mat case. Lying in a shallow gully beside the garage wall, were 11 gold bars wrapped in red-and-white cloth. Some of the same red-and-white material was later discovered in Noye’s Ford Granada, and operating instructions for a smelting furnace were also found in Noye’s apple store. Officers were astonished to discover that Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey was primed to play on the stereo system whenever anyone walked into Noye’s lounge.

Around this time another of the suspected Brink’s-Mat robbers, George ‘Georgie Boy’ Francis, was shot in his pub by a gunman who escaped on a motorbike. Francis survived after an operation to remove a 9mm bullet from his shoulder, but the message had been sent loud and clear to all those connected with Brink’s-Mat who had not yet been sent to prison. Keep your trap shut. By this time, police believed that at least half the gold had been smelted and sold back to legitimate dealers, including Johnson Matthey, to whom, ironically, it belonged in the first place. Meanwhile the remaining gold, worth at least £10 million, was, they believed, buried and undiscovered. Detectives eventually traced the proceeds of the robbery to the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Spain and Florida. Increasing amounts continued to be invested in property in the London Docklands redevelopment boom of the mid-Eighties. A portion was even used to buy a former section of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, which was then converted into flats that eventually sold for £1.6 million.

Brink’s-Mat money was poured into property developments on the Costa del Sol. Noye and Reader were found not guilty of the murder of DC Fordham but five months later both were jailed in 1986 for handling stolen bullion. It was in jail that Noye became convinced that there was a fortune to be made from Ecstasy. The days of armed robberies were numbered. Security vans were monitored with radar by the police, and it was virtually impossible to rob a bank. As a result, drugs were emerging as the main criminal currency. Ecstasy could be sold to teenagers as user-friendly, although its known side effects, including panic attacks and heart problems, soon became evident. Noye and the Brink’s-Mat team could smell a real earner with E. It had the potential to give them a return of ten times on the gold bullion money they would invest in it. Moreover, the investigation into Brink’s-Mat was progressing; bank accounts and assets were steadily being frozen. Inside Swaleside Prison in Kent, Noye soon spread the word. From the late Eighties to early Nineties, Brink’s-Mat cash would deluge Britain with Ecstasy.

One of the detectives involved in the Brink’s-Mat inquiry explained: ‘There is absolutely no doubt that the flood of Ecstasy into Britain started largely because of the Brink’s-Mat cash that was floating around.’ The Ecstasy tablet that killed 18-year-old Leah Betts after an evening out in Raquel’s nightclub in Basildon, Essex in November 1995 had been supplied by a gang controlled by Pat Tate, Noye’s associate and ‘minder’ when the pair were in jail. Leah’s friend Stephen Smith had obtained four tablets and gave one to Leah because it was her birthday. Neither had realised the tablets were double-strength. The gang’s contacts inside Kent Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police remained invaluable. While still in prison, Noye was tipped off that, together, the police and the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were targeting him along with other members of the Brink’s-Mat gang. Noye was told that they almost had enough evidence to implicate him in a huge drug deal. Noye pulled out of the deal and a costly six-month investigation was abandoned.

On his release from jail, Tate ran Essex’s main Ecstasy supply route after getting financial backing from Noye and other Brink’s-Mat gang members. The gold from the heist was almost single-handedly helping finance the huge influx of the designer drug into Britain. In 1995, Tate was one of three men found shot in a Range Rover in the Essex countryside. They had been lured there by another Brink’s-Mat associate to inspect a landing site for aircraft carrying Ecstasy. Interviews with the police and criminals suggest that Tate wasn’t averse to horse-trading with the police. Was the Brink’s-Mat gang’s involvement in the Ecstasy trade one of the ‘titbits’ that he offered them? The death toll of those linked to the Brink’s-Mat robbery continued to climb as the years went on. In 1987 ex-policeman Daniel Morgan was found with an axe embedded in his skull in a South London car park. It was known that he had encountered Noye and his associates. The Brink’s-Mat curse even touched on the Great Train Robbery gang of 1963.

One of them, Charlie Wilson, found himself in trouble when £3 million of Brink’s-Mat investors’ money went missing in a drug deal. In April 1990, he paid the price when a young British hood knocked on the front door of his hacienda north of Marbella and shot Wilson and his pet husky dog before coolly riding off down the hill on a yellow bicycle. Over the next three years, four more shootings were connected to the Brink’s-Mat raid. Noye was released from prison in the summer of 1994 but in March 2000 was jailed for life for the M25 ‘road-rage’ murder of motorist Stephen Cameron, committed four years earlier. From 1994 to 1997, five more gangland deaths were attributed in some way to Brink’s-Mat. The murder of a witness in the Noye road-rage case in October 2000 left another bloody mark.

In November 2001, the shooting in broad daylight of Brink’s-Mat robber Brian Perry, 63, as he got out of his car in Bermondsey, South-East London, sent a shiver of fear through the underworld. Perry had been murdered right in the heart of his ‘home territory’. One source close to the gang told me: ‘Certain people wanted their share of the gold and when it wasn’t there waiting for them, they started getting very upset.’ The cycle of death continued. A few months after Perry’s murder, two of his oldest associates were murdered separately near the Kent ports of Chatham and Rochester. Then, on May 14, 2003, Brink’s-Mat gang member George Francis, 63, was gunned down at point-blank range as he sat in his car outside the courier business he ran in South-East London. When, more recently, a bodybuilder confessed to being the ‘dismemberer’ for the notorious Adams family, it became clear that some of the bodies he had disposed of were murdered because of their links to Brink’s-Mat.

Stephen Marshall, 38, had originally been arrested after stabbing a former work colleague to death and cutting his body into pieces. When the body was first discovered it led to the case being known as the Jigsaw Murder. Marshall stunned detectives by alleging that he’d hacked up four other bodies while working for Terry Adams – one of the men responsible for laundering the Brink’s-Mat gold. As one senior detective who worked on and off on the Brink’s-Mat investigation for more than 20 years commented: ‘Nothing really surprises us any more when it comes to Brink’s-Mat. These villains were out of control, many of them off their heads on drugs bought with their new-found riches. ‘The trouble was that when that money either ran out, or in the case of some of them, never materialised, there was only one way to respond and that was to kill people to show others that even 25 years after the robbery was committed, if they dared to cross the gang they would still pay for it with their life.’ The Brink’s-Mat villains’ epic conversion of gold into cash brought more money into this country than any other gang of criminals in history.

And when they spent it, they often helped keep legitimate businesses afloat in the poorer areas of South-East London, as well Spain’s Costa del Sol. At most detectives only ever laid their hands on about 30 per cent of the stolen gold. The rest of it has gone up more than one hundred-fold in value since the heist in 1983. There remains a hard core of 250 ‘premier league’ criminals at the top of the British underworld, many of whom are constantly tracked by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). This includes at least three members of the Brink’s-Mat gang, still active after all these years. But Brink’s-Mat also marked the end of an era in British crime. Robbery was overtaken by far more lucrative, straightforward enterprises such as drugs, arms dealing and racketeering, even people smuggling. One former detective, who spent five years working on the Brink’s-Mat inquiry, is convinced that a large amount of gold from the robbery lies hidden, and that at least two of today’s younger London gangs have started ‘breaking a few arms’ in a bid to locate it.

He said: ‘It’s well known that some of the gold is still out there and I understand a couple of really nasty gangs of younger villains have decided to do everything in their power to find it,’ he said. ‘It’s going to go on long after every single bar of gold has either been recovered or turned into cash because there are a lot of people out there who believe the Brink’s-Mat robbery owes them a living.’ TURNING INGOTS INTO UNTOLD MILLIONS Melting pot: The smelter found at the home of John Palmer The Brink’s-Mat gang quickly realised that gold bullion is no use if you can’t spend it, so Kenneth Noye had no difficulty in convincing them that he could help them turn the gold bars into hard cash. It was a complex operation involving both money laundering and the melting down of the gold. But there seems little doubt that the money it generated helped the Kent crime boss turn his favourite Mediterranean haven in northern Cyprus into a smaller but much more dangerous version of the Costa del Crime.

Money from Brink’s-Mat was used not only to set up timeshare resorts and build hotels in Cyprus, but also to help gangsters with links to the robbery to buy mansions on the island. John Palmer with his wife Marnie Along a five-mile stretch of the coast between the port of Kyrenia and the town of Lapta, South-East London villains adopted a champagne lifestyle behind the gates of their luxury homes, similar to that once enjoyed by British crooks in southern Spain. Among them was the secluded £2 million villa of Dogan Arif, unofficial leader of the Arif gangland family who terrorised South London with their robbing and drug-trafficking operations in the Eighties. They also played a role in handling much of the Brink’s-Mat gold. One of the problems with the gold was that its purity would quickly arouse suspicion if attempts were made to sell it to legitimate traders. That’s where Noye and his knowledge of the smelting trade came in. The high-grade ingots were melted down and mixed with copper to disguise the quality. The trick was so successful that the Assay Office in Sheffield even stamped its seal on some of the cleverly doctored gold.

A smelter was later found at the home of Bath businessman John Palmer, but he was cleared of any involvement. Palmer, who often wore body armour, was eventually convicted of timeshare fraud and was jailed for eight years. © Wensley Clarkson 2012. The Curse Of Brink’s-Mat by Wensley Clarkson is published by Quercus, priced £10. To order your copy at the special price of £8.99 with free p&p, please call the Review Bookstore on 0843 382 1111 or visit mailshop.co.uk/books. BBC NEWS | UK | High-profile heists Printable version High-profile heists Two armed robbers are being sought for stealing £40m worth of necklaces, rings and watches from a London jewellers. How does this raid compare with some of the world's biggest and most notorious robberies? 2009: GRAFF JEWELLERS The £40m raid on London jeweller Graff is believed to be the biggest-ever British gems heist. It dwarfs the previous title-contender - a £23m raid at the same store in 2003.

The store has been targeted in two major raids Two smartly-dressed armed robbers walked out of a black taxi and into the New Bond Street store on 6 August. Once inside, they pulled out two handguns and threatened staff before snatching 43 different rings, bracelets, necklaces and watches. They escaped across the city's West End in a series of vehicles, firing two warning shots into the ground as they went. Graff's Sloane Street branch in Knightsbridge was also hit in 2005, when armed robbers escaped with up to £1m worth of jewellery. 2007: DAR ES SALAAM BANK Possibly the world's biggest robbery occurred in July 2007 but the raid got surprisingly little coverage in the media. Police said three guards who worked at the private Dar Es Salaam bank in Baghdad's Karrada district had apparently walked off with $292m (£146m) from the bank's vaults. Iraq has been heavily reliant on a cash economy since the British and US invasion in 2003, and this made banks highly vulnerable.

In March 2003 the then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered his sons Uday and Qusay to steal $1bn (£500m) from the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad. About two-thirds of the money was later found hidden in the walls of one of the leader's palaces. But because of Saddam's position this was not really considered a robbery in the traditional sense. 2006: SECURITAS DEPOT A security depot manager, his wife and young child were kidnapped and held hostage by a gang who raided the Securitas site in Kent on 21 February 2006. A hostage was used to gain entry in the Securitas raid The robbers took the family at gunpoint and drove them to a farm for questioning, before heading to the Tonbridge depot. Once there, the men tied up 14 terrified workers and set about loading up a lorry with a haul of £53m in notes. Another £153m was left behind because there was no room left in the getaway vehicle.

In January 2008, five men were convicted on kidnap, robbery and firearms charges and given minimum jail terms of between 10 and 15 years. The judge told them: ""This was organised banditry for uniquely high stakes." 2005: BANCO CENTRAL In 2005 robbers stole £38m from a branch of the Banco Central in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza. The robbers spent three months digging this tunnel The robbers spent months preparing for the raid. Basing themselves in a house opposite the bank, they toiled on a 200m (656ft) tunnel into the bank and broke through the final metre of steel-reinforced concrete. Choosing the weekend of 6/7 August 2005 - when they knew the bank would be closed - they set about emptying the vault of millions of reals, the local currency. The bank was not insured but about £4m was recovered. One of the masterminds, Luis Fernando Ribeiro, 26, was found shot dead on an isolated road 200 miles (320km) west of Rio de Janeiro two months after the robbery.

It is thought he may have fallen out with other members of the gang or been double-crossed. 2004: NORTHERN BANK It was believed the IRA may have been involved in the robbery On 20 December 2004 a gang stole £26.4m from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast - which, at the time, was the largest amount of cash ever taken in a robbery in the UK. The scale of the robbery was so large that the bank had to withdraw its notes and replace them with new ones, with different logos and colours. It also had political ramifications as it was blamed on the IRA, who were supposed to have ended all criminal activity. Most of the stolen cash has yet to be recovered. 1995: MIDLAND BANK CLEARING CENTRE On 3 July 1995 a gang ambushed a Securicor van at the Midland Bank Clearing Centre in Salford, Greater Manchester. Graham Huckerby (left) was wrongly convicted for the robbery Using violence and threats, they forced the van's driver, Graham Huckerby, to let them in and then took over the van and drove it away.

They escaped with £6.6m in cash. Mr Huckerby was later accused of being the "inside man" and was convicted in 2002, along with another man, and jailed for 14 years. Both men's convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in December 2004 and they walked free. The robbery remains unsolved and none of the money was ever recovered. 1990: CITY BONDS On 2 May 1990 a financial messenger was robbed at knifepoint in a quiet City of London side street. He had been carrying Treasury bonds worth £292m. Detectives believe the mugging was carried out by Patrick Thomas, a small-time crook from south London who was shot dead before he could be charged. The police later recovered all but two of the bonds after a tip-off. One man, Keith Cheeseman, received a six-and-a-half-year sentence for laundering the stolen bonds. 1987: KNIGHTSBRIDGE SAFETY DEPOSIT CENTRE At least £40m of goods were stolen from 120 safe deposit boxes at a warehouse opposite Harrods on a Sunday in July 1987.

The robbery was an inside job planned with the help of the managing director of the centre, Parvez Latif, who was heavily in debt. Italian Valerio Viccei received a 22-year sentence for masterminding the theft. In 1992 he was given the right to serve the rest of his sentence in an Italian jail, but in 2000, while on day release, he was gunned down by police after acting suspiciously. The whereabouts of most of the £40m horde remains unknown. 1983: BRINKS MAT Six armed men gained entry to the Brinks Mat high security warehouse at Heathrow Airport on 26 November 1983 by posing as security guards. They doused a guard with petrol and threatened to set him alight unless he opened the vault. The Brinks Mat robbers got away with 6,000 gold bars The gang escaped with gold bullion and diamonds worth £26m - about £112m in today's terms. Most of the gold is thought to have been melted down and sold off, and the proceeds invested in property abroad.

Solicitor Bob McCunn, working for Brinks Mat's insurers, helped to recover millions of those monies. Robbers Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson were jailed for 25 years, while the inside man, Anthony Black, received a much shorter sentence after giving evidence against them. Kenneth Noye, who was jailed for 14 years for handling some of the stolen gold, was sentenced to life in 2000 for a murder committed in 1996. 1983: SECURITY EXPRESS On Easter Monday 1983 a gang broke into the Security Express depot in Shoreditch, east London, and escaped with £6m. Ronnie Knight laundered some of the proceeds The robbery was masterminded by John Knight, the brother of Ronnie Knight, the former husband of actress Barbara Windsor. John Knight was later jailed for 22 years. Ronnie Knight, who was living in Spain, later admitted handling some of the stolen money and was jailed in 1994. The haul would be worth about £26m in 2008 terms.

1976: BRITISH BANK OF THE MIDDLE EAST On 20 January 1976 members of a Palestinian group allied to Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation stole £22m from the British Bank of the Middle East in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Yasser Arafat's PLO made millions from the robbery The raid, which occurred at the height of the Lebanese civil war, happened when the gang blasted through a wall the bank shared with a Catholic church. The Palestinians reputedly employed a group of Corsican locksmiths to gain entry to the vault and the safety deposit boxes within. The haul, which included gold bars, Lebanese money, foreign currencies, stock certificates and jewellery, had to be taken away in lorries. The £22m - worth about £100m at today's prices - helped finance the PLO's activities throughout the 1970s and 1980s. 1963: GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY The Great Train robbers targeted a Glasgow-to-London mail train On 8 August 1963 armed robbers stole £2.6m in cash from the Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train.

A gang of 15 robbers brought the train to a halt in rural Buckinghamshire with a fake stop signal. Train driver Jack Mills, who was struck on the head during the robbery, never fully recovered from his injuries and died in 1970. Detectives found the robbers' base, Leatherslade Farm, and a series of clues recovered there led them to most of the gang members, who were caught and sentenced to up to 30 years in jail. One of them, Ronnie Biggs, later escaped from Wandsworth prison and fled to Brazil. He returned to Britain in 2001 to serve the remainder of his sentence, and in 2009 was released on compassionate grounds due to his deteriorating health. Most of the money - worth about £40m in today's terms - was recovered in the months following the robbery. Bookmark with:

Question: In November 1983, 26 million pounds worth of gold, diamonds and cash were stolen from the Brinks-MAT warehouse at which British airport?
Answer: Heathrow Airport