From executive producer Guy Ritchie, The Diamond Heist is a new documentary exploring the attempted Millennium Dome heist.
Featuring interviews from the perpetrators and the police officers who were investigating their every move, the three-parter has been dubbed as “a proper naughty Netflix documentary series”.
But what was the heist and were they successful? Read on to learn more about the attempted heist and hear from those involved at the heart of it and the man who was onto them.
What was the Millenium Dome diamond heist?
[image id="2251244" size="full" title="diamond-heist (3)" alt="A gem pictured in front of a black background." classes=""] The Millennium Star.The Diamond Heist was an attempted robbery of the Millenium Dome’s Dee Beers diamond exhibition.
In November 2000, a local gang had planned to steal the Millennium Star, a 203.04-carat gem with an estimated worth of £200 million in that year.
The plan was that the gang would smash through the Dome’s outer skin, they would enter the vault, throw smoke grenades to obscure the cameras, break the glass casing and be out in under five minutes – with a speed-boat waiting for them to whisk them away on the Thames.
“It felt a bit far-fetched,” one of the robbers, Lee Wenham, told Radio Times magazine. “Once I’d been to the Dome so many times, I could see security was weak. I wanted to be involved in something really big and it couldn’t get much bigger, could it?”
But what the gang didn’t know is that the police were on to their plan.
“Let’s just say that they were informed, and there’s nothing you can do about that,” Wenham said.
How did the police catch the Diamond Heist gang?
[image id="2251243" size="full" title="diamond-heist (2)" alt="DCI John Swinfield in a suit" classes=""] DCI John Swinfield.The police first got wind of their plan when one of the gang members crashed a van into a pub. Wenham was then trailed by the police to and from the Dome, and when a speedboat was brought to Wenham’s father’s farm, their plan was clear.
“Just after 9am, the JCB took up a position behind a fence,” DCI John Swinfield told Radio Times magazine. “All of sudden it went over this huge bollard like it was a twig. When it smashed through a heavy steel gate, we finally realised what they were going to do next…”
Lee Wenham pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal and was sentenced to four years in prison. He was also sentenced to nine years after he pleaded guilty to an attempted robbery in Aylesford, Kent.
Co-conspirators Raymond Betson and William Cockram were sentenced to 18 years for conspiring to rob and it was later reduced to 15 years on appeal.
Aldo Ciarrocchi and Robert Adams were sentenced to 15 years, while Terry Millman died of cancer before the trial commenced. Kevin Meredith was found guilty of conspiracy to steal and was sentenced to five years.
Speaking of the robbers and their attempt, Swinfield said: “I respect them as adversaries. But they failed because we were watching them, and they never had any idea that we were.
“They failed because we’d thought of every escape route they might have, and we were there waiting. We were just too good for them.”
The Diamond Heist is available to watch on Netflix now. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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