Golden Years: The Hatton Garden Heist

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, campers, Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true
crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney,
and we're here to tell you a true story that
is way stranger than fiction or roasting murderers and marshmallows
around the true crime campfire.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Mark Twain always a good man for a quote said
about getting old. Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. There is generally
a broad, unspoken societal agreement over what the elderly are
supposed to be like, the shape their lives are supposed
to have. There are always people who don't fit into
this preconception. Of course, I'm sure plenty of you have

(00:43):
encountered some weird and wild senior citizens, but probably not
as wild as the people in this week's story, who
turn their lives into their own personal mashup of grumpy
old men and Ocean's eleven. This is Golden Years the
Hat and Garden Heist, So campers for this one. We're

(01:10):
starting in the town of Dartford, Kent, on the outskirts
of London, May nineteenth, twenty fifteen seventy six year old
Brian Reeder was staying close to the phone. He was
expecting an important call, one that could change his life.
He was an old man with a shock of white
hair that he arranged carefully to disguise a receding hairline.

(01:30):
Just because you're old doesn't mean you can't be vain.
Brian liked nice, expensive clothes. He wore tasseled brown leather shoes,
stripy socks, and colorful silk scarbs. He looked frail. He
was frail. A few years ago, he'd been diagnosed with
prostate cancer and neutropenia, which made him susceptible to infection.

(01:52):
Not long after that, he'd climbed a tree to cut
a branch and fallen out, fracturing his neck. The physical
ills were the least of though. His wife Lynn had
died six years before, and everything had seemed gray after that.
There was really only one thing that could still bring
excitement into his life. He sat by the phone and
waited for the call. Three police vans screeched to a

(02:15):
halt outside Brian's home. He felt a little thrill as
he watched twenty police officers pour out of the vans,
several of them carrying a battering ram for Brian's front door,
but he wasn't really surprised. A few moments later, the
door smashed in and frail old Brian Reeder was placed
under arrest for one of the largest robberies in British history.

(02:38):
He had been born in the tenement slums of Deptford
in nineteen thirty nine, a place where theft was barely
frowned upon as a way to survive in poverty. His
dad was a fence. Brian was stealing almost as soon
as he could walk. He was already on the path
for a tough life, which wasn't helped when World War
Two started right after he was born and the Nazi

(02:58):
started bombing the shit out of Lanne. The first six
years of Brian's life were a grim mix of crime,
air raid sirens, explosions, rubble and poverty, and right after
the war, his dad scarpeed off, leaving seven year old
Brian feeling like he had to take care of his family.
He and a gang of friends stole cigarettes, booze and

(03:19):
radios out of cars to sell on to dealers at
the street markets. They shoplifted too, which earned Brian his
first criminal conviction. At the grand old age of eleven.
This didn't scare him straight, It just made him a
hero to his peers. Brian and his mates nick led
from roofs and wallets, from tourist buses, really whatever they

(03:39):
could get. He left school at fifteen and got a
job at a butcher's, but the math on that was
pretty clear. More effort less money. When he was seventeen,
Brian was conscripted for his one year's stint of national service.
He wasn't keen on it. His patriotic feelings very clearly
separated nation from government in both World Wars, plenty of

(04:02):
his relatives had been conscripted into service and then killed.
He tried to fail as medical but the army didn't
buy it. He was a bright guy, though, so he
decided to make the best of it, and during his
time in the army he learned as much as he
could about explosives and cutting equipment. As soon as he
was out, he started building a reputation in the underworld

(04:22):
as a cutter, someone who could get through walls. He
also fell for the girl behind the counter at his
local bookies, where he placed vets most days. Lynn's family
weren't too keen on her hooking up with Brian. You know,
they sat her down and said stay away from that
sexily forbidden young man, which went about as well as

(04:44):
you'd expect. They were soon married, and at least on
Lyn's half, lived a regular suburban life. Brian followed the
old school CON's first rule, keep your mouth shut, So
we don't know many details about his criminal career over
the next couple of decks, except that he often complained
about k needing time off because he was so busy.

(05:05):
He was essentially a contractor, hired out whenever a job
needed some thick barrier to be taken care of. This
put him in contact with plenty of shady characters, and
at the end of the seventies he went into business
with one called Kenneth Noy.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
After Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in nineteen seventy nine,
one of the things her government did was to get
rid of the fifteen percent tax on gold coins like
South African krugarans. The more devious of you might already
have spotted the problem with this. Brian, Reeder and Kenny
certainly did. They bought krugarans from banks tax free, then

(05:43):
smelted them down into gold ingots. They sold these back
to other banks, collecting the fifteen percent tax. Obviously, the
tax was supposed to be passed on to the government,
and equally obviously they did no such thing. Legislations soon
closed the sloophole, but by then Brian and Ken had
enough capital to smuggle coins from mainland Europe, where the

(06:06):
tax was lower or nonexistent. They made a ton of money.
In nineteen eighty three, the Brinksmar robbery happened. That's a
whole other, big story, but the short version is that
a bunch of crooks had a warehouse that he throw
airport and unexpectedly found three tons of gold Bouyon. The
gold bars were numbered, so the crooks looked for ways

(06:28):
to smelt them down into clean, untraceable gold, which brought
them to Brian Reader and Ken Noise. Soon Brian and
Ken were shuttling gold in both directions between Ken's country
house and London. On January twenty sixth, nineteen eighty five,
Brian arrived at Ken's country house to talk about the
gold business. It was dark, the ground covered in light snow.

(06:52):
Ken's wife, Brenda made them tea not long After Brian arrived,
Ken's dog started barking down by the barn. While Brian
and Brenda waited on the front porch. Ken went to
his car and got a flashlight and a knife, then
went down to see what had gotten the dogs all
riled up. He put the knife in his pocket and
turned on the flashlight. The dogs were barking at a bush.

(07:16):
Ken shone the flashlight on it. Then he heard a
noise to his left and swung the beam around. A hooded,
masked figure dressed in all black was standing just four
feet away, staring right at him. According to ken Noy,
the strange figure punched him. Noi took the knife out
of his pocket and started fighting back, stabbing the man

(07:36):
again and again. As they struggled at the house, Brenda
ran upstairs to grab a shotgun. Noi broke free and
ran for the house, while the man in black stumbled
toward the garden wall. There's a masked man down there,
Noi said, grabbing the shotgun. All three of them hurried
back toward the barking dogs, who were now surrounding a
man slumped on the ground. If you don't take that

(08:00):
mask off and tell me who you are I'll blow
your head off, NEI said The man hesitantly took off
his mask. He looked almost as pale as the snow
all around him. Brian Reader had the uncomfortable feeling that
he was probably a calm good. A second later, a
police car smashed through the iron gates of the property.

(08:22):
Brian Reader just ran for it, scrambling over the garden
wall and running through the dark across a snowy field.
He eventually reached the road back to London and tried
to hitch a lift.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
A car slowed. Brian recognized it as a model the
police often used, so put his thumb down and hurried
across the road. When he saw a car coming in
the opposite direction. This one slowed down to let him in,
and this one was also driven by police. Brian and
Ken were both arrested and charged with the murder of
Detective Constable John Fordham, an undercover officer who had been

(08:56):
part of a crew surveilling Ken's house as part of
the Brinx Matt investigation. Exactly what he'd been doing sneaking
around the garden and a ski mask was never clear.
Another member of the surveillance team claimed to have seen
Brian kick the officer when he was on the ground,
thus his charge. Although the officer making this accusation was
unable to say where Brian had kicked him and hadn't

(09:18):
come forward until five months after the event. Ultimately, a
jury determined that ken Ney had been defending himself, and
he and Brian were both cleared of murder, but convicted
of charges related to smelting the gold. Brian was sentenced
to ten years, Ken to fourteen, and ken did not
take it well, screaming at the jury, I hope you

(09:38):
all die of cancer. Jesus, no, dude.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Brian got out in nineteen ninety one, but he was uncomfortable.
It was clear the police were not about to let
bygones be bygones. They watched him everywhere. Brian wanted to
get away, and he wanted to make more money to
take care of Lynn, who'd developed diabetes and problems with
her pancreas. He moved to the north coast of Cyprus

(10:05):
and tried to make a mint by building time share properties.
He knew other crooks who had done the same thing
in Spain, but the Spanish beaches were the most popular
destination for European tourists and Northern Cypress was not even
before it was finished. The timeshare plan collapsed and Brian
sold half built properties at a loss and headed back
to England. The nineties boom and London property prices made

(10:29):
him realize he'd have made a ton of cash if
he just stayed and invested his money there. Brian Reader
was a talented crook, but when it came to non
criminal ways of making money, his touch was more often
led than gold. In two thousand and nine, Lynn died,
leaving the now seventy year old Brian bereft. He started
to feel like he had nothing left to lose, and

(10:50):
his thoughts turned toward a potentially impossible job Hatton Garden.
The Hatton Garden area of London is the center of
its gems, his own and jewelry trade. The particular building
Brian had in mind was eighty eight ninety Hatton Garden,
an old six story building that was home in its
basement to the Hatton Gardens Safe Deposit Company. This was

(11:13):
a private vault with a carefully cultured reputation for discretion
and secrecy, and was reputed to hold incredible wealth. A
lot of it was perfectly legitimate profits or especially valuable
merchandise from the nearby jewelry trade. It was also where
some people hid their wealth from the government or from
former spouses, and where much of London's criminal elite stashed

(11:36):
their ill gotten gains. Woo just gives you goosebumps thinking
about it, doesn't it. This was what made Hatton Garden
such a risk. It was in the territory of the
notorious and notoriously violent Adams crime family. Trying to hit
it without their okay would be madness in prison. Brian

(11:57):
had met up again with an old friend, Terry Perkins,
a professional robber who'd been put away for his part
in a six million pound heist in nineteen eighty three.
In the joint, they'd talked about Haddon Garden, and now
Brian got back in touch. The first thing they needed
to do was okay any heightst with the Adams family
or they'd almost certainly end up dead, and they needed

(12:18):
someone to provide financial backing for the job. A mutual
acquaintance put them in touch with one of the Adams's
most trusted employees, Wensley Clarkson, whose book Sexy Beasts was
one of our main sources doesn't give this guy's real name,
but calls him Lennie, so I guess we will too.
They flew down to southern Spain to meet Lennie, who

(12:38):
took them out to dinner and then to a nightclub,
and in a back room, he told them the Adams
family had agreed to finance the job with conditions. He
asked Perkins and Reader if they had an inside man
to help them through the vault.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Now, I don't do British accents campers, so I'm not
gonna do it. I'm sorry. Okay, you got it.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Bullocks to that, Perkins said.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
In the next part two, Iris was gonna do the
fun part.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Okay, all right, that's fair. We'll work out our own access.
Inside men are a fucking liability. Lenny pretended to muld
this over, then said he'd like them to meet someone.
He called someone on his cell phone, and a few
moments later in walked a tall, thin man with weird
red hair sticking out from under a baseball cap, almost

(13:31):
certainly a wig. He had on big sunglasses that hit
a lot of his face. He smiled and introduced himself
as Basil. He looked like some kind of evil clown,
reader said later, tall, awkward sort of bloke, but he
smiled a lot. Basil, with the magician's flourish, opened his

(13:54):
hand to reveal two keys. With these, he said proudly,
I can get into the building, whip Brown to the
fire exit and hey, presto, let you all in. Simple
as that, The deal was that the Adams family wanted
Basil to recover one particular security box from the left
hand side of the vault. The rest of the crew
were only to go after boxes on the right hand side,

(14:16):
and only within specified number ranges. It was all very
strange and unsettling, and neither Brian nor Terry liked it
one bit. Someone they didn't know would be on the
job with them, and it was becoming clear that their
own control and freedom regarding the hest would be severely limited.
But what could they do. The Adams family ran North London.

(14:39):
Either they did the job their way or they didn't
do it at all.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
They agreed keep picturing Coma's and Morticia's crime bosses in
London like British, like Cockney crime bosses. That is a
movie I would pay to see right there.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, they'd be trading in like taxidermy bats or something
and making out during crime meetings and stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know what they would do. They would be trading
in like super rare venomous snakes, that's what they Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, serving like cyanide tea to their enemies and drinking
it themselves.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
I'm already right in the movie in my head. Give it,
give me the give me the movie, give me the rights,
I'll write it. Brian already had the tool he needed
in mind, a heavy duty diamond tip drill called the
Hilty d D three point fifty. It was expensive, but
that was no problem. They just nick one from a
construction company. They also needed a crew. From what we've

(15:40):
seen of heist's irl, this very rarely turns out to
be an ocean's love and style recruitment of highly skilled specialists.
It's just picking from whatever shady dudes you happen to know.
Danny Jones was sixty years old, a professional criminal who
drank at the same pub as Terry Perkins The Castle.

(16:02):
Jones was, to say the least, eccentric. He lived in
a two million pound mansion in Enfield, but he was
so tight fisted that he bought all his clothes from
charity shops. He preferred to sleep while wearing his dead
mother's robe and walked around his house wearing a Turkish chufez.

(16:25):
He was obsessed with the army, so much so that
he often slept beside his bed rather than on it,
in a sleeping bag on the floor. When he did this,
he'd pee in a bottle rather than walk the few
yards to the bathroom. Yes, like a basement dwelling kickstreamer okay.

(16:47):
His wife was agoraphobic to a degree where she rarely
left the house and apparently had the patience of a saint.
Despite his age, Danny was as excitable and impulsive as
a puppy.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
They all knew. Kenny Collins a seventy four year old
with a long record for fraud, burglary, and handling stolen goods.
He had a rep as a fellow with a hard
head and a big heart, a solid guy on a job,
but he was seventy four, had been seriously overweight for
most of his life, and now had serious hip problems.
He needed a cane to walk most times, but no

(17:21):
one and the crew knew that because he kept it
hidden in his car whenever he met them, And finally
there was Carl Wood, a longtime friend of Danny Jones.
He didn't have anything like the career of the others,
but they figured they could use him for some of
the necessary physical work. Carl was on a six hundred
and forty pound disability pension for a serious case of
Crohne's disease, and he was deeply in debt. Right from

(17:45):
the start, he kept pushing the crew to do the
job as quickly as possible so he could dig himself
out of a hole. The others ignored him, except for Danny.
They didn't much like him. Carl could be strange and distant,
and somewhat ironically, these old schools crooks and con artists
preferred people to be frank and straightforward. They met every

(18:05):
Friday at the Castle to discuss the job over pints,
all except for Basil, who they never heard from again
after that first meeting. They'd been told to only get
in touch when they were ready to do the job.
The plan was to steal the equipment, then hit the
vault over the April Bank holiday weekend, when all the
businesses would be closed from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning.

(18:27):
They nabbed the drill and tried it out behind a pub.
Brian Reader, the supposed expert cutter, told them he knew
everything about how to operate it, but he couldn't even
get the things started. Danny Jones opened his laptop and
looked up how to operate the drill on YouTube. But
to let Brian save face, they went through the procedure together,
both holding on to the drill. It was just as

(18:49):
well they did, because the machine almost flew out of
their hands. They tried it out on a nearby concrete
wall and the diamond tipped drill bit started tearing through it. Immediately.
They stopped because the thing was incredibly loud, and they
worried somebody would come and investigate, but they were all
impressed by the power of the thing. For all the
careful planning, the fact is the gang had to get

(19:12):
lucky again and again to pull off this heist. On
April first, the day before they planned the break in,
there was a serious electrical fire beneath the King's Way Road,
which included a gas line bursting and flames shooting up
out of a manhole cover.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
It would burn for two days before being extinguished. People
in nearby offices were evacuated, theaters canceled shows, and telecommunications
were screwy all around. The fire would obviously occupy most
of the authority's attention over the holiday weekend, so much
so that there was later speculation that it was started
as a deliberate diversion. It wasn't, the fire Brigade would

(19:50):
determine it was just a freak accident, with no sign
at all of arson, just good luck. The next morning,
the gang as usual minus Basle, met in a law
behind the Old Wheat's Heath Pub. Terry Perkins told them
they might walk away with as much as fifty million pounds,
which set Danny Jones jumping around and punching the air
and shouting yes until everybody else told him to shut up.

(20:15):
I like Daddy, Danny's the Golden retriever friend. You know
it just all excited. The plan was to get the
most valuable gems they stole woven into cheap costume jewelry.
Women would wear them on budget flights to Europe, where
the stones would be re cut and sold. Brian Reeder
reiterated the Adams family's instructions. They weren't to touch any

(20:36):
box on the left hand side of the vault, only
the boxes on the right, and only the specific numbers
they'd been told to steal, and he told them not
to bring any weapons. The job was designed so that
they wouldn't encounter anyone, and any weapons would add years
to any potential prison sentence.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
We're all too fucking old for a fight anyway, Reader
said he was seventy six and an obvious poor health.
He was already breathing hard before the job had started.
They all arranged to travel separately to Hatton Garden and
meet in the evening. Brian bragged that he'd gotten hold
of a stolen Freedom Pass, which let's retirees travel for

(21:14):
free on public transportation, so he'd take the train and
bus into London without leaving any trail. Very sensible, but
it struck all the image conscious crooks in the room
as a little odd for a supposed hardened Krison wants.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
A citizen discount.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Who doesn't, Yeah, I mean, honestly, like it's at least
it's stolen, right, like he stolen, So what do they care?

Speaker 1 (21:42):
It's not his? They all put their cell phones in
a cardboard box until the job was done, except for Brian.
Who didn't have one. A little after eight pm, Kenny
Collin stopped in a white van on Leather Lane, the
next street over from Hatton Garden. The gang soon met
up with Brian on the street. They were going for
the opposite of stealth here. All of them who are

(22:04):
going inside had on workman's hive viz jackets. Brian's had
gas written on the back and he wore a hard hat.
But Brian, who was quite a fancy man in his
later years, couldn't fully commit to the disguise. He also
wore stripey socks, expensive brown leather shoes, and a kicky
silk scarf, which you don't often see on gas workers

(22:26):
while they're on the job. They waited in the van
until a little after nine, when the mysterious Basle arrived.
He walked along Gravel Street carrying a plastic bag on
his shoulder in a way that blocked his face from
London's ubiquitous CCTV cameras. He had on dark clothes and
a black cap from beneath which the cameras caught shiny,

(22:49):
straight red hair that everyone thought must be a wig.
The press would later call him mister Ginger Robbery is
a lot easier when you have a KI just strolled
up to the front door of eighty eight ninety hat
and Garden and let himself in. There was a magnetic
glass door inside with a pin pad. Basil apparently had

(23:11):
the code. He crossed the lobby and unlocked the door
to the courtyard, then opened the fire exit onto the street.
The rest of the gang, except for Kenny Collins, got
out of the van and started unloading their equipment, along
with the two big wheelibins. Terry Perkins kept patting his
chest to make sure his insulin was there. Brian Reader

(23:32):
was out of breath after carrying one bag of tools. Still,
they ferried everything through the fire exit, which they jammed open,
not hurrying so as to not look suspicious. Lastly, they
carried in the long canvas bag that held the diamond
tipped Hilty drill. Once they were out, Kenny Collins locked

(23:53):
the van and headed across the street, huffing and puffing
as he struggled to get the door open. He went
up to the off the gang had rented and sat
with his feet on the window sill. He could see
both the front and side entrances of eighty eight ninety
from here and would be the gang's lookout. With nothing
but a cheese sandwich and a flask of tee to
keep in company, Basil and Danny Jones went to work

(24:15):
on the elevator, disabling it so it would stay on
the third floor. Basil pulled off the door sensor so
the elevator doors on the first floor would stay open,
revealing the dark elevator shaft.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
A collapsible ladder took the two of them down to
the basement, where the Hat and Gardens Safe Deposit Company
had their offices and vault. They pried open the elevator
doors down there with enough force to buckle them, and
they were in. There were no cameras down here. The
safe deposit company made their money from discretion and secrecy.
Their clientele didn't want to be recorded on their visits upstairs.

(25:16):
Another member of the crew taped an out of order
sign beside the open elevator doors. They didn't expect anyone
to be working late in the offices, but just in case,
they wanted to make sure no one felt like they
had to report a broken elevator in the basement. Basil
got to work. He cut the telephone cable fixed to
the alarm box and snapped off its antenna, which drastically

(25:37):
reduced its signal range. He opened an electrical box that
provided power to the sliding metal gate that separated the
basement from the courtyard and cut a few wires. With
no power, the gate could be pulled open manually, which
the rest of the gang did and started dragging their
equipment inside. The gate opening unexpectedly like that should have

(25:58):
sent an alarm signal to the security car company, but
Basil had disabled that, or at least thought he had.
But Basil's confidence in his technical abilities wasn't matched by
his actual knowledge. The alarm wasn't completely disabled, and enough
of a signal got through to alert the security company
sort of. Again, the gang got lucky. An automated text

(26:20):
was sent from the security company to the local police
station to let them know about an incident in the
vault area, but the police ignored it completely. In fact,
they didn't even notice it because an automated text is
a ridiculous way to communicate a security concern. It's crazy. Oh.
The gang smashed the lock off from the access door

(26:41):
into the vault area so they could get the equipment
in more quickly. They cut through an iron gate with
an angle grinder, then used industrial metal cutters to get
through a barred, reinforced door and into the Vault company offices.
The sleek, dark metal vault door stood before them, silver
combination locks shining. The gang had no interest in the door.

(27:03):
They were going through the wall beside it. This was
a foot and a half of concrete reinforced with steel.
But if Brian Reader's calculations were correct, the Hilty drill
should handle it, although it wouldn't be quick or big.
Their plan was to drill three adjoining holes side by
side to create a tunnel about eighteen inches wide and

(27:24):
ten inches high. Now, if you want, grab a tape
measure and see if that's a hole you could fit through,
because my answer is definitely a hail nah. But Vasil
and Danny Jones were both skinny little guys and we're
confident they could slither through. It reminds me of those
terrifying caving videos. I'm obsessed with those. Any of you

(27:44):
guys watch those, They're terrifying.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Like I like those too, but I have to watch
them in like ten minute chunks and take a break
because they make me naxious, Like.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
It's so upsetting.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
What do you mean You went headfirst down a hole
that you weren't sure how an exit, and now your
arms are trapped, And like the guys always have like
a new job or a pregnant wife or seven children
at home waiting for them.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
No, it's like the weirdest, most unnecessary risk to take,
and yet they just glory. And I'm gonna squeeze myself
into this hole that's smaller than a frigging gopher hole.
It's gonna be fine.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, well, Whitney, the worst part, the worst part is
is that eventually we're all gonna have to go caving.
It's not optional, it's.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
A legal requirement that you must go caving.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
It's still legal.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
They'd tried out the drill beforehand behind the wheats Heath pubs,
so they knew it would be loud, but that was
out in the open air. Here in the enclosed offices,
the sound was enormous and deafening, loud enough that they
worried the locals would call somebody, but they were still lucky.
After decades of proposals and planning, London was in the
middle of building its crossrail project connecting the east and

(28:59):
west sides of the city through central London. This new
railway was underground and construction was underway of a new
platform at the Farrington station, just a few hundred feet
from Hatton Garden. Anyone who heard the racket of the
drill in the vault assumed the noise was connected to
the underground railway work. Heavy machinery is tough work. Perkins

(29:20):
and Readers stopped drilling every fifteen minutes, saying it was
to let the drill cool down. The drill was water
cooled and didn't need the interruption. It was obvious to
Danny Jones that the two pension age leaders of the
crew were wearing themselves out and needed regular brakes.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Plessor Arts and.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Basil didn't help at all, just stood in the corner
with his fingers in his ears, smiling as he watched.
He's such a friggin weirdo.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
It took more than two hours to drill the first hole,
and even that didn't get them all the way through.
Each wall of the vault's interior was covered with a
steel skin fixed to the floor and ceiling. The cabinets
holding the deposit boxes were fixed to the gang had
a plan to get through that, but first they had
to finish drilling. It was just after midnight. Hatton Garden

(30:11):
wasn't a nighttime part of town and the streets were deserted.
Up in his lookout spot by the window, cheese, sandwich
and tea long gone, Kenny Collins had his feet up
on the windowsill and was struggling to stay awake. O
relatable Over at the Holborn Police station, someone had finally
noticed the text message from the security company three hours

(30:34):
after it had been sent. The coppers didn't exactly spring
into action, though, they decided this wasn't a high priority
alarm okay. All they did was call the alarm company
and advise them to send one of the Vault security
guards to have a look around. The security guard pulled
up outside eighty eight ninety Hatton Garden at around one

(30:56):
point fifteen am. This was precisely the situation Collins had
been set up to look out for across the street.
But Kenny had lost the good fight and was deep
asleep and snoring. But lucky lucky again, the gang downstairs
had taken a longer break for some tea and sandwiches

(31:18):
of their own, so the so there was no drilling
sounds for the guard to hear. In fact, it was
quite enough for the crew to hear the car pull
up outside and hear someone walk around. The gang listened intently,
but they weren't too worried. Kenny would have radioed over
to them if there was trouble, and Basil, who clearly

(31:40):
knew the building inside and out, told them that even
if a security guard had come to check things out,
he'd only look at the outside of the building. He
was right about that. The building's insurance policy stipulated that
only police officers were to go inside the building in
response to any alarm. The security guard checked the doors
to make sure they were locked, then went around to

(32:02):
look through the letter box on the fire exit. He
saw nothing untoward and decided the alarm system must have
just tripped on by itself, something it had never previously
done in the eight years since it had been installed.
This is not a story about people being great at
their jobs. I mean, on all accounts. I mean, you've

(32:24):
got the you've got the the you've got the criminals
stopping for fucking tea and sandwiches on a timed heist.
You they can they can do. They can drill and shifts. Okay,

(32:46):
take a take a sandwich break while somebody else drills
a Yeah, have the lookout guy fallen asleep? The police
missing text messages? What are they doing? The only honestly,
the only guy good at his job is Basle. He
thought to like block his face from view from although

(33:06):
even Basil wasn't that great at his job. He got
to let the text message get sent out true anyway,
The guard called the vault manager, who was on his way,
and told him everything was secure. They both headed home. Now,
if he'd peered through the letterbox for just a few
more moments, the security guard would have seen Carl Wood

(33:30):
come out to light a cigarette. By five am, all
three holes were done, and the gang used sledgehammers to
clear out the remaining concrete from the tunnel. Now they
had to deal with the steel skin on the inside
of the vault. Now. For this, Brian Reader had brought
a pump, a hose and hydraulic ram, along with metal

(33:52):
joysts to anchor it in place inside the tunnel. This
was the part of the plan that Brian had the
least confidence in. A Few days previously, he'd told Terry
if that doesn't do the trick, then were fucked.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
These little dudes swear like as their job, by the way,
and don't get me wrong, I like swearing, you guys
know that. But these dudes had mouths on them like
in insane sailors at something else you'll see in a
minute when I'm talking about He pressed the starter on
the ram. Nothing happened. He pressed it again and again,
tension building behind him, and then finally it fired up.

(34:29):
Danny Jones and Carl Wood cheered. The ram bashed against
the steel skin for an hour, but not only did
it not break through, it had barely made a dent.
Terry Perkins told Brian to speed it up. The ram grunted, clunked,
and died. Nothing they did got it started again. Brian

(34:50):
shrugged and told him to pick up the sledgehammers they'd
used on the concrete. Although Brian didn't do the work,
he looked more exhausted than any of them, leaning against
the wall and breathing hard as the others awkwardly bashed
through the hole. One layer of metal was all that
was between them and millions of pounds. After a sweaty
half hour, it was clear they weren't going to get through.

(35:12):
Carl Wood suddenly threw down his hammer and started walking
around in circles, screaming in frustration. Brian made a decision
the job was a bust. They'd have to pull out. Basil,
who had literally not said one word in hours, narrowed
his eyes and told them the Adams family would be
very upset if the job failed. They should leave, get

(35:35):
new equipment, and come back the next night. The holiday
weekend meant it was unlikely anyone would discover their work
so far. The rest of the crew were unconvinced. Everything
in their criminal careers told them you got in and
out as quickly as possible, and you never went back
to the scene of the crime. If it had just
been them, they would have called it quits. But it

(35:56):
wasn't just them. This job was under the auspices of
the Adams family. If they walked away, they'd have the
threat of violence and death hanging over them. At seven
thirty a m. They called Kenny Collins and told him
to get the van ready. They piled in as Basil
walked away alone. Kenny kept asking where the loot was,

(36:17):
but no one answered him until they were back at
his house. Brian Reader made an uncomfortable decision. He told
the gang he shouldn't go back with them that night.
He didn't think he was physically capable of making it
through another night like that, and wouldn't do them any
good at all if he had a heart attack in
the middle of the job. None of them argued. He
was pale and unsteady on his feet. They gave him

(36:40):
a lift to the train station and then started figuring
out what they were going to do. Mike Tyson once
set about boxing. Everyone has a plan until they get
punched in the face. Sleepless and desperate, the gang didn't
make the best choices. They went out to a store
called Machine Mark to get a new pump for the
hydraulic ram. Danny Joe signed and gave his name as V. Jones,

(37:02):
but used his own credit card and gave his own
address for the purchase. Dude Oopsie. That evening, Kenny Collins
drove them back to Hatton Garden and his white Mercedes.
Basil had called earlier and told them to meet him
at the same time and same place as the previous night.

(37:22):
They got there a little early, which gave Carl Wood
time to completely lose his shit. Carl's a little high strung.
It seems. He was convinced someone had been inside the
building and seen what they were up to. He started
shaking his head and walking around, ranting that they'd been
stitched up, that this was a trap, that the coppers
were going to swoop in at any moment. His nerve

(37:44):
was going, or, as one of the gang put it later,
his asshole went, that's a good way of putting it. Eventually,
Carl jabbed a finger into Terry Perkins's face, silently mouthed
the words fuck off, and marched away into the Just
a couple minutes later, Basil sauntered down the street. If

(38:05):
he was surprised to see the crew reduced to just
Terry Perkins and Danny Jones, he didn't show it, just
nodded casually to them and let himself in the front
door of the building, just like he had the night before.
They were soon down in the basement again, with the
new pump connected to the ram. The new pump started smoothly,
and the ram hammered at the steel's skin holding the
cabinets on the inside of the vault. Nothing happened quickly,

(38:29):
but it was clear. The ram was hitting the steel
much harder than it had the previous night, bending the
metal inward. Golden retriever thief Danny Jones started yelling, smash
it up, now, put that down. It's fucking working, it's working.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Finally, the ram pounded into the steel skin one last time,
and it came loose from its mounting in the ceiling,
the whole thing, cabinets and all crashing forward into the vault.
The way was clear, right next to the unconquerable vault door.
They'd cut a tunnel straight through the wall.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Shit.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
For a while, they just stared at it. Then Basil
calmly reminded them that they were working against the clock.
He was thin as a rail and easily squirmed through.
Danny Jones came after barely forcing himself through the narrow tunnel.
Terry Perkins, who had the comfortable padding of a man
of advancing years, stayed outside. There was no chance of

(39:27):
him fitting through that gap. As agreed, Basil started immediately
looking for one specific box on the left side of
the vault. Danny got out the scrap of paper on
which he'd written the numbers of the boxes on the
right side that they were allowed to take. Some of
the security boxes were locked with two keys. Others were
full safes with combination dials, but none of the security

(39:49):
precautions in there were heavy duty. The vault itself was
supposed to be protection enough. Danny had a crowbar and
an angle grinder, and that was more than enough to
smash the lox and rip out the boxes. The first
box was a disappointment, although a mysterious one. It held
an audio cassette and from the label it looked like
it was someone confessing to something that would have gone

(40:12):
into my pocket immediately, but it was worthless to Anny.
He wanted cash, gold, gems, and jewelry and tossed the
tape aside and attacked the others.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
I'm on, man, I would be on that shit like
White on Rise. That would be the treasure for me.
I could not get to a tape player fast enough.
That is a damn shame. Oh man, I wish I
knew it was on that tape.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
He later said he felt like he was popping open
boxes at Christmas time. Every time he opened one and
found cash or jewels, he shouted out yes and shoved
them into his bag. He pushed the first bag of
loot through to Terry Perkins. Dazzle, meanwhile, had pulled out
the one box he was after and carried it gingerly

(40:54):
as if it was full of eggs. He put it
in a sack and crawled through the tunnel, then just
sat in the corner and watched the other two work,
a broad smile on his face. What was in the box? Sorry,
we don't know. Let your imaginations run wild.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Like glowing shit that was in the pulp fiction briefcase?

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah? Probably, Terry Perkins quickly sifted through the loot, just
tossing aside gems and jewelry he thought looked too cheap.
Danny ripped open seventy two boxes, and only seven of
them were empty or held things that were worthless to
the robbers. One, for example, held six different passports for
the same person, again intriguing, but again worthless to Danny.

(41:42):
Basil suddenly stood and announced that he was off. The
others didn't bother to say goodbye to him as he
wandered away. Before he left, he went to the vault
security office and stole the hard drive for the CCTV
cameras in other parts of the building.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
And that was it. For Terry and Danny too. They
didn't trust Better or the Adams family at all, and
wouldn't put it past them to call the cops. As
soon as they'd gotten what they wanted. They called Kenny
Collins in his lookout spot across the road and told
him to get the van ready. Then pushed the two
wheelie bins full to the brim with valuable loot out
to the fire exit. They loaded them into the van

(42:17):
and sped off. It was five forty five a m
jobs like this heists. Bank robberies aren't like other crimes.
They come with an intense elation, a buzz when they
go right, something criminal psychologists think is often just as
important as the material rewards. These guys are chasing a
high as much as they're chasing riches, so the van

(42:39):
was bouncing as they drove back to Kenny Collins's place.
A little sober reflection might have dulled the mood. They
left almost all their tools and equipment back in the vault,
down to just two people, and worried that the Adams
family were about to stab them in the back. They
hadn't had time to drag it all out. They were
also as one of them said later on fucking knackered.

(43:02):
Whatever they'd left behind plenty for the police to work with.
Back at Kenny Collins's place, Terry immediately started splitting up
the loot. On previous jobs of his, a lot of
suspicion and grief had been caused by one person looking
after the loot until it could be divided up later,
and he wanted no bar to that. They'd have to
lay low for a while before trying to fence anything,

(43:24):
but they'd each have their own stash. They'd made an
astonishing hall stapphires and diamonds worth tens of thousands of pounds,
designer watches and brooches, bundles of pounds dollars in euros,
small bars of gold and platinum. Later, the value of
the hall would be estimated at fourteen million pounds. That'd

(43:45):
be around twenty seven million dollars today. Terry Perkins was
basking in the glow of a job well done, and
then he got a phone call. It was the Adams
family letting him know that there'd been a change of plans.
All the most valuable gems were to be given to Basil,
who would ship them abroad immediately. Fuck off, Terry said,

(44:06):
and slammed down the phone. It rang again almost immediately,
and Terry learned that Basil had taken a CCTV hard
drive that clearly showed all their faces. It would be
given to the police if the gang didn't cooperate, and besides,
there was no need to worry. They'd still get their
fair share of the proceeds once the gems had been sold.

(44:28):
Terry didn't believe that for a second. Having just pulled
off an incredible robbery, the gang were themselves being robbed.
Just moments after the call, Basil was at the front door,
with two Big Adam's family lurches standing right behind him.
He carefully went through the hall, picking out all the
most valuable pieces. Before he left, he promised the gang

(44:52):
they'd get their fair share. No one believed him. After
he'd left, the mood sunk like a lead balloon. They
still a decent amount of loot, but just a fraction
of what they'd worked so hard to get. It felt
like a small reward for all the effort and risk.
Terry Perkins pulled himself together and went back to splitting
up what they had left. Brian Reader hadn't been there

(45:14):
the second night, but it was his plan so he'd
get a share. Carl Wood, having lost his asshole, got nothing.
It wasn't until eight am on Tuesday, three days after
the robbery, that a security guard went into the Safety
Deposit Company offices and discovered the smash door and the
hole drilled through the wall. He rushed outside to get

(45:35):
a signal on his phone and call the police. It
was one of the biggest robberies in British history and
was immediately a massive headline grabbing story. As is often
the case with big heists where no one gets hurt,
the perpetrators almost immediately reached foll hero status in the
popular imagination, like becoming Robin Hood type sticking it to

(45:56):
the man, although of course neglecting one important robin Hood
step rubbing from the rich check giving to the poor. Eh,
we'll get back to you on that.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
When it came out the police hadn't responded to an
alarm on the first night of the robbery, there was
a huge outcry no police force in the world wants
to hear the words Keystone cops. Now it was all
over the papers. The Prime Minister called the Police Commissioner
for updates on the case, something that usually only happened

(46:28):
with terrorism investigations. The heat was definitely on. Cameras from
London's automatic number plate recognition system had captured thousands of
images from the days around the heist. On April eighteenth,
two and a half weeks after the robbery, investigators trawling
through all this data spotted a white Mercedes driving in

(46:50):
and out of the Hat and Garden area on both
nights of the robbery. Looking for their back they found
it had been there many times before, just slowly cruising around,
and on the second night it looked very much like
the three passengers were all wearing Hi Viz jackets. Exterior
CCTV cameras had grainy images of the robbers, all but

(47:12):
one of them wearing jackets just like that. The Mercedes
was registered to Kenny Collins, seventy four years old, with
a record as Long as Your Arm. Metropolitan Police immediately
put him under surveillance. In a post nine to eleven world,
police surveillance was very different from what the old crooks
were used to. A GPS tracker was attached to Kenny's car.

(47:35):
Detectives followed him with cameras that had long range microphones
that could pick up conversations from fifty feet away. If
they couldn't pick up the audio, they had lip readers
examined the footage. A GPS trace on Kenny's phone told
them where he was at at any time. Every minute
of his life was observed, but they didn't observe much.

(47:59):
One detective said Kenny had quote one of the most
boring fucking wives I've ever come across for a major criminal.
Several times a day, Kenny would just go out in
his fancy white Mercedes along with his Staffordshire bull terrier Dempsey,
and just cruise around his neighborhood just to be seen
and show off his flashy car. This was a seventy
five year old man. Kenny's habit of not looking either

(48:23):
way before crossing the street made the detectives think he
wasn't all that bright, and they weren't alone in that opinion.
What did you say earlier with that these guys had
mouths like insane sailors? Terry Perkins later described Kenny as
quote a wombat, thick old cunt.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Oh my god, I am mad, and that one to
the roll of decks that's going on our list.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
For future episode.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
It's a wombat dick.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Oh, I love it so much WTOCOC and he's just AFC.
You'll know, Campers, when we say WTOC, you'll know what
we mean. Kenny had no idea he was being surveilled.
He moved like he was ten years older than his

(49:13):
actual age, and the detectives watching him wondered how he
could possibly have had anything to do with an audacious heist.
He got his car washed every other day, he shopped
at Aldie. That was it.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Bless his heart.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Then five days into the surveillance, he finally did something
to break the monotony. He went to the pub. There
he met with two other elderly men, neither of whom
looked healthy, and had what looked like an intense conversation.
A video camera and a bag on the bar recorded them,
and lip readers suggested they'd been talking about hat and garden,

(49:50):
which I do have to say, I don't understand having
like plotting your crime in public. Why why are you
doing this? Why?

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Anyway, it was astonishing. All three of them looked like
they'd fall over in a stiff breeze. Could these rickety
old dudes really be the robbers? The cops were looking
for doubts evaporated though, when the two new old men
were identified back at Scotland Yard. Terry Perkins was sixty
seven and had a long and glorious career as an

(50:24):
armed robber, and Brian Reeder was seventy six, who'd had
an equally long, if left spectacular career, but one that
included the death of an undercover police officer back in
nineteen eighty three, even three decades later, that's the kind
of thing a police department remembers. As one detective put it,
finding out Brian Reader was involved was like putting a

(50:46):
missile up all our arses. Ooh kinky. The surveillance expanded
and soon caught all the other members of the gang,
except for Basil, who the others had never seen or
heard from again. The police played dumb to the press
to try and keep the gang relaxed, insisting they were
looking at an inside job and offering twenty thousand pounds

(51:07):
reward for any leads. The investigators wanted to make sure
they had an airtight case, and the opportunity soon came up.
The gang was going to get together for what crooks
called the slaughter, bringing all the loot together for a
more precise division than the hurried job they'd done immediately
after the robbery. On Tuesday May nineteenth, they got together

(51:28):
at Terry Perkins's daughter's house out in Enfield, minus Brian Reader,
who was sick and trusted Terry to look after his share.
They all had pieces of luggage crammed with loot. Just
seconds after they'd all arrived, six police cars screeched to
a halt outside the house. A battering ram smashed open
the front door and coppers swarmed inside. At each gang

(51:50):
member's own house, other police raids took place forty miles
south in Kent. Three police vans pulled up outside Brian
Reeder's house and twenty officers swarm inside. The arrests reignited
the press obsession with the case, especially when they discovered
that most of the gang were well over sixty. They
were dubbed the Diamond Wheezers. I Love It. The evidence

(52:14):
against the crew was overwhelming, but still authorities were surprised
when the four principal robbers, Reader, Perkins, Jones and Collins
all decided to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary.
There was no sentencing deal. What they didn't know was
that the gang were much more concerned about the Adams
family than the judicial system. The family had made it

(52:36):
clear they'd prefer it if they all just did their
time and kept their mouths shut and they went along. Otherwise,
you know, the family's going to send thing after him,
and the thing is a trained assassin.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Terry Perkins, Danny Jones, and Kenny Collins each got seven
year prison sentences. Brian Rider got six years and three months.
Carl Wood, who made zero money from the whole business,
got six years. A later ruling determined that the four
principles had to pay back millions of pounds in restitution
or have their sentences extended. Terry Perkins, who developed heart

(53:16):
disease in addition to his diabetes, died in prison in
February twenty eighteen, a week after his second ruling. Brian
Reider developed dementia and was granted compassionate release in twenty nineteen.
He died of cancer in twenty twenty three. Danny Jones
was released in twenty twenty two at the age of
sixty six. As far as we know, Kenny Collins is

(53:38):
still inside at the age of eighty five.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
In twenty eighteen, police finally tracked down the mysterious Bezel,
a whip then fifty eight year old called Michael Seed,
who lived in a tiny council flat crammed with computers
in electronics gear. His bio was very different from the
rest of the Hat and Garden crew, the son of
a Cambridge biochemist who got an electronics diigree before turning

(54:00):
to a twin career selling LSD and repairing computers. Fringing
Walter White over here, he said he'd lived in the
black economy for thirty years, with no bank account and
no government presence except for his monthly one hundred and
five pound council flat rent. He hasn't opened up at
all about how he came to be involved with the

(54:21):
Adams family, which is probably wise, and he was sentenced
to ten years in prison, where he remains today. We
all like to think we'll hold on to our spark
as we get older, right, And you gotta hand it
to these old guys. They definitely did that one last
big score. I suspect that, at least for some of them,
it was almost worth it. The adrenaline rush, the Christmas

(54:44):
morning feeling of going through all those safe deposit boxes.
I mean, I would much rather be something like skydiving,
like my friend's seventy six year old mom recently started
doing because she's a battie. You don't have to do
crime for that rush, but hey, you gotta stay young
at heart or die trying.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Well.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
We want to send a special happy birthday shout out
this week to our superfan Abby from Jacob. My birthday's
actually tomorrow, so Hi. There almost birthday twin. So that
was a wild one, right, campers. You know we'll have
another one for you next week, but for now, lock
your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we
get together again around the True Crime Campfire. And if

(55:25):
you haven't booked your spot yet on the Crime Wave
True Crime Cruise from November three through November seventh, get
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Katie and Me plus last podcast on the Left, Scared
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(55:45):
Atsea dot com slash campfire and take it from there.
And as always, we want to send a grateful shout
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